Paradigmatic changes and errors of Russian education modernization

the article, which bears the character of a discussion, the overall thrust of the process of modernization of Russian education since the mid-1990s is analyzed. The author identifies three paradigmatic errors which causing the problem in the course of modernization. They are: a definition of education as a service sector; the priority of quantitative methods of education quality assessment; refusal to recognize the specificity of professional teacher education, leading to its destruction. The article contains criticism of the positivist model of education, focused on a minimum standard of knowledge, which leads to the gradual breach of Russian higher and secondary education, the principles of universal, fundamental education also the principle of the state order. This comes into collision with the socio-humanitarian nature of the educational system. Special attention is paid to the changing role of teachers who have to work in a hostile, ever-changing social environment. This requires a special vocational teacher training system: the selection of the appropriate «input» into the profession; special education program, which includes the basic ideological and fundamentally subject-cycles, as well as the practical part of the in-depth psychological and methodical program. According to the author, the teacher education corresponding to the challenges of time, it becomes a key issue for the Russian state and society.