Arne Duncan Has His Sputnik and Rosa Parks Moments Mixed Up
Historians now tell us that Sputnik was much more a propaganda and public relations gimmick than it was an indication of Soviet technological and educational superiority. The American Vanguard 1, in fact, could have launched first, and our former Nazi rocket brain trust in Huntsville was furious that Eisenhower didn't launch first.
But if you don't believe the historians, look at what happened 13 years after Sputnik: I believe that was the Stars and Stripes planted in the Sea of Tranquility, rather than the Hammer & Sickle. The facts, however, didn't stop conservatives like Arthur Bestor and Admiral Hyman Rickover and Milton Friedman from using the incident to bludgeon schools into another of the recurring back to basics movements that keep American kids through the
But if you don't believe the historians, look at what happened 13 years after Sputnik: I believe that was the Stars and Stripes planted in the Sea of Tranquility, rather than the Hammer & Sickle. The facts, however, didn't stop conservatives like Arthur Bestor and Admiral Hyman Rickover and Milton Friedman from using the incident to bludgeon schools into another of the recurring back to basics movements that keep American kids through the
