Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: A Sputnik Moment

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: A Sputnik Moment

A Sputnik Moment

by Mike Klonsky

In his State of the Union address, President Obama harkened back to the Cold War era when the world's two biggest military superpowers faced off in proxy wars and brought the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation. Ah, the good old days.

The Russians grabbed an early lead in the superpower space race when they launched Sputnik 1, the first Earth-orbiting artificial satellite, in 1957. Cold warriors raised the chilling specter of Soviet missiles raining down on American cities from outer space and blamed "failing" public schools for our lag in the race to the top into space.

One of the leading cold warriors was James B. Conant, Harvard president and head of the Atomic Energy Commission. In 1959 he authored the book, The American High School Today, which ushered in the era of the big comprehensive high school, standardized testing, tracking and channeling federal education dollars and competitive