An Allentown student practices taking a PSSA test at Jackson Elementary School. (Monica Cabrera, Morning Call FIle Photo /March 22, 2011)


5:42 p.m. EDT, March 22, 2011

In his State of the Union address, President Obama expressed the hope that American education could recapture its "Sputnik moment." He was referring to a period of educational reform that persisted for about a decade after the former Soviet Union launched space satellite Sputnik I in October 1957.

The federal government funded programs in curriculum development and teacher training based upon the view that trained brainpower was necessary to win the Cold War. The goal was to achieve educational excellence by modernizing the curriculum to provide more challenging programs. Science, math and foreign languages, such as Russian, became more prominent in the school curriculum. Although a half century has gone by, there are still