ARTICLE 5
TRANSFORMING
AMERICAN EDUCATIONAL
IDENTITY AFTER SPUTNIK
K. A. STEEVES, P. E.
BARD
BERNHARDT,
J. P.Steeves
BURNS, AND M. K. LOMKathleen
Anderson
National Council for History Education
Philip Evan Bernhardt,
The George Washington University
James P. Burns
The George Washington University
Michele K. Lombard
Arlington Public Schools
Some questions about education in the United States are easier to answer
than others. If one wants to compare curriculum requirements across
states, the data can be acquired and conclusions announced. However,
Kathleen Anderson Steeves, National Council for History Education, 7100 Baltimore Avenue, #510, College Park, MD, 20740, (T) 240–696–6603, (F) 240–770–3964, Email:
[email protected], Philip Evan Bernhardt, Graduate School of Education and Human Development, The George Washington University, 2134 G Street NW, Washington, D.C., 20052,
(T) 202–329–9673, Email: [email protected], James P. Burns, Graduate School of Education
and Human Development, The George Washington University, 2134 G Street NW, Washington, D.C., 20052, (T) 703–328–4107, Email: [email protected], Michele K. Lombard, Department of Instruction, Arlington Public Schools, 1439 N. Quincy Street,
Arlington, VA 22207, (T) 703–228–6162, Email: [email protected].
American Educational History Journal
Volume 36, Number 1, 2009, pp. 71–87
Copyright © 2009 by Information Age Publishing
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
71
72 K. A. STEEVES, P. E. BERNHARDT, J. P. BURNS, AND M. K. LOMBARD
any discussion of philosophy of learning or results of some pedagogy or
another requires a look at what others have thought about, researched
and concluded. Even with this information, the landscape of schooling
changes with shifts in personnel, research or demographics. Thus, the
strength of an argument may come from exploring an idea from varied
perspectives. This analysis examines American public schooling after the
1957 launch of the Russian satellite, Sputnik, not as one event with one
result, but rather as a representation of multiple responses that had varying effects – small and large.
From their beginnings in the 1840s, public schools have stood at the
nexus of many US events. Since the introduction of compulsory schooling
laws, schools have played a key role as an institution in which all Americans have a common experience—we have attended school, been
required to learn about civic duty and life adjustment, and been exposed
to a variety of social norms that have influenced and shaped our upbringing. Schools are one key to our identity as an educated, open society.
What follows is an exploration of how Sputnik and its attendant political response has impacted our understanding of schooling and its role in
describing who we are as citizens, teachers, and learners. Teachers,
administrators, students and government all have significant roles in
building an image of schooling. As we examine this particular event, we
address a question of identity. Was there a real change? We argue that
these events altered the way the education system functioned, especially
in its locus of control, but ultimately had less effect on the social or institutional identity or purpose and more effect on the psychological aspects of
the individual and the social elements within identity and purpose. Conclusions are suggested, but not proscribed, with the intention of leaving
the reader with a background from which to develop his/her own understandings in response to the central theme of this analysis.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT: 1950S AND BEYOND
In the 1950s, fear of rising Communist powers world-wide, combined
with the brewing civil rights movement and slowly shifting social values,
not only brought public questioning regarding the roles and responsibilities of public education, but it also resulted in increased federal oversight
and influence in the daily lives of all Americans. These historical
moments served as a precedent for how we respond to political and social
crises—by turning our attention and shifting human and financial
resources towards schools. The guiding idea became, if you want to fix a
social or political problem, look to schools. If identified as a national
issue, then federal power could logically offer the solution through
Transforming American Educational Identity after Sputnik 73
schools–increasingly less often guided by educators—more top down than
bottom up. The 1957 Sputnik launch was a political issue that influenced
schools through federal involvement in curriculum. Did response then
serve as a catalyst for a major transformation in America’s educational
identity?
Initial reactions to Sputnik unearthed strong feelings of fear, astonishment, and insecurity. In an effort to confront the psychological panic taking hold, President Eisenhower and Congress swiftly put together a
strategic response to appease public demand. In the years after Sputnik,
education policy can be identified by two distinct elements. First, the federal government took an unprecedented role in the development of
national education priorities. This involvement was supported by substantial increases in funding and the unveiling of a legislative framework
emphasizing technical rationality, federal oversight, competitiveness, and
widespread school reform. Second, there was a growing fear the United
States was losing its political and technological standing in the world. As a
result, failures in education became closely associated with weaknesses in
national security. If the United States was to defeat its communist rivals,
the ills of American schools, teachers, and students must be cured.
INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION
Fear has been the tool of choice in shaping the American curricular landscape in the post-Sputnik era. This has resulted in the reality of an exclusionary process that prides itself as mythically inclusionary, particularly
through the guise of crisis. ‘Public’ efforts to include populations considered marginalized have resulted in further exclusion. Pang (2006) refers
to this as ‘the paradox of equity’. This perpetuation of fear has played a
role in the othering of many students and the subsequent denial of its
occurrence. Ultimately, many students are disconnected from their educations, trapped by a system that does not view them as individuals in process, but as means to a fabricated end. Not understanding our roles and
the nature of fear within this process serves only to impede progress,
masking a crisis of the self much larger than that of the system. Freedom
to change and freedom to succeed requires a revolt, a calling to question
laws, norms, and values, in this case, those that pertain to the current curricular landscape (Kristeva 2002).
‘Crisis’ is a term often used to describe the state of American education. Crisis is a social construction with an educated subject as its result
(Stone 2004). Fear is individual. However, there cannot be a social sense
of crisis without individual fear. The cycle of crisis seems to renew itself
every twenty years or so by heaping a new resurgence of fear upon the
74 K. A. STEEVES, P. E. BERNHARDT, J. P. BURNS, AND M. K. LOMBARD
public. According to the October, 2007 Bracey Report, Sputnik marked
the time when everything changed and started staying the same. The
emergent and popular theory that developed as a result of Sputnik was
that the Russians beat the United States into space as a result of better
schools. It was not true, but the public believed it to be true, and the damage had been done. The media frenzy depicted the failure of American
education beginning with the cover of Life displaying the headline, ‘Crisis
in Education’. Within the issue was an article featuring a heavily biased
and rather gross misrepresentation of two teenagers, one from Russia and
one from the United States. The words and pictures depicted the United
States teenager as one wasting his education, while the Russian teenager
was focusing on his studies heavy in science and math (Bracey 2007). [The
same concept has appeared most recently in the 2008 documentary Two
Million Minutes.] Approximately twenty years later in 1983, the federal
government released A Nation at Risk that offered a resurgence of fear that
‘others’ are outperforming the United States. Similar to the National
Defense Education Act (NDEA) of 1957, this report outlined what was
wrong with the US system of education and how to fix its vast and complex problems. Policy writer Paul Kimmelman (2006) argues American
society was “being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threaten [ed]
our very future as a nation and a people” (7). No Child Left Behind Act
(2001), also a response to an educational crisis, is draped in similar terminology stressing penalties, strict timetables, rigorous testing, scientific
measurement, and rigidly prescribed outcomes. While both of these policy initiatives offer solutions intended to address the perceived problems
plaguing American schools, they each overflow with a desire to fix what is
broken. Consequently, this curative language, a direct result of the postSputnik way of thinking, dominates education discourse in the United
States. This resurgence of fear through enacted law becomes a management of the status quo, or a lack of movement, of meaning. Kristeva
(2002) posits, “ When prohibition or power can no longer be found, disciplinary or administrative punishments multiply, repressing, or better still,
normalizing everyone (31).”
While Americans were struggling with the inferiority complex that
emerged after the launch of Sputnik, the federal government was busy
crafting a new identity for the field of education. This transformation left
a lasting legacy on schooling in the United States. In a response to what
was perceived as a domestic and international crisis, the federal government became directly involved in developing and financing education
reform. This crisis, considered a consequence of a failing education system, called America’s national character into question. The federal government was forced to re-think America’s educational identity. There was
also a growing fear the United States was losing hold of its standing in the
Transforming American Educational Identity after Sputnik 75
world. As a result, educational success and failure became interconnected
with both competition and national security.
POLITICAL CONTEXT: (UN)INTENDED CONSEQUENCES
Writing about the effect of Sputnik on the American mindset, historian
Walter McDougell (1997) suggests, “no event since Pearl Harbor set off
such repercussions in public life” (142). To the American people, Sputnik
represented the scientific, technological, and engineering superiority of
the Soviet Union. American mediocrity, which many blamed on the failures of public schools, was seen as a result of apathy, unaccountability,
government shortsightedness, and the failures of progressive education
reform. Historian Daniel Boorstin points out, “never before had so small
and so harmless an object created such consternation” (Dickson 2007, 1).
The widespread anxiety and concern permeating American society would
serve as the driving force behind the federal government’s effort to craft a
new educational identity. This new paradigm would not only intensify
already simmering cold war hostiles, but it would also establish a clear
precedent for increased federal involvement in the development, implementation, and evaluation of education policy. The NDEA represents
deliberate action by the federal government to dramatically increase its
arc of influence. It was “an emergency undertaking…to bring American
education to levels consistent with the needs of society” (Dickson 2007,
227).
NDEA’s core initiatives, which included programs to improve math, science, and foreign language instruction, scholarships and fellowships for
higher education, and opportunities for teacher development, were made
possible by a large increase in the federal education budget. For example,
the NDEA loan program is credited with providing millions of students
with a method of financing post-secondary schooling. It appropriated
$47.5 million in student loans in 1958, with expenditures on loans budgeted to exceed $100 million by 1962 (Dickson 2007, 227). In addition,
nearly $300 million was allocated to fund the purchase of equipment for
science classrooms, training for teachers, and the establishment of
National Defense Fellowships for graduate students (Dickson 2007, 227).
These types of financial investments by the government seemed to reinforce for the public that education was a pressing national priority.
Other legislative action included the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Elementary
and Secondary Act of 1965, Immigration Reform Act of 1965, Title IX of the
Elementary and Secondary Act in 1972, and Public Law 94–142, otherwise
known as The Education for all Handicapped Children Act in 1975 (Banks
76 K. A. STEEVES, P. E. BERNHARDT, J. P. BURNS, AND M. K. LOMBARD
2002). However, a 1977 study of state and national policies by Giles and
Gollnick (as cited in Johnson 2003, 109) found:
Legislative intent of both federal and state laws appears most often to be
concerned with protecting the rights of cultural and ethnic minorities in an
effort to ensure equal educational opportunity rather than preparing all students to know about and function effectively in a multicultural society.
A subsequent 1995 study found little support for promotion of cultural
diversity. This is the façade. In 1985, the New York City Board of Education adopted one of the most comprehensive and inclusive (by millennium standards) multicultural policies. Cultural diversity was viewed as a
valuable resource. It recognized the impact of racism and encouraged
teaching strategies that created meaningful learning experiences for all
students. This inclusive approach also highlighted the need for curriculum development, involvement of community organizations, and staff
training, especially on conflict dealing with discrimination and bias based
on race, color, religion, national origin, gender, age, sexual orientation,
or handicapping conditions. The implementation of curriculum developed to meet this policy brought with it much conservative opposition,
and subsequently, a revision of the policy to focus curriculum development only on ethnic, racial, and linguistic groups. A separate anti-discrimination policy (not including implications for curriculum) was
developed for the categories of sexual orientation, gender, handicapping
condition, religion, and age, thereby bifurcating the concept of multicultural education. Neither revision included budgetary implications for
implementation or accountability. This highlighted the symbolic nature of
multicultural, or marginalized, policy (Johnson 2003). James Banks
(2002, 12) emphasizes, “knowledge is viewed as most influential when it
reinforces the beliefs, ideologies, and assumptions of the people who
exercise the most political and economic power within a society.”
POLICY PERSPECTIVE: THE DEFICIT MODEL OF U.S. EDUCATION
Public schools are habitually described as broken, lacking, insufficient,
and scarce; they operate on a model of deficiency always looking to illuminate what is absent, broken, or needs to be fixed. This mindset directly
influences the American fixation with schools being in a constant state of
failure. The federal government has seized upon this atmosphere of discontent to become the dominating voice in education. From the 1980s,
increasingly, the President and Congress have not only set the context,
content, and direction of discussion, but have also defined the language
Transforming American Educational Identity after Sputnik 77
framing the debate. Consequently, this language had become deeply
rooted in the belief schools, teachers, and students need to somehow be
cured or standardized. The shift in America’s educational identity is not
only represented by an increase in federal power, but it also emerged as
government officials began to discuss failures in education as critical
weaknesses in national security. Speaking to Congress in 1957, Representative Carl Elliott echoed these concerns:
Our very survival depends, I believe, in maintaining the technical superiority of the free world over that of the Communist world, and maintaining this
superiority depends largely on having enough scientific, engineering, and
other technical and professional people with enough training of sufficient
quality to outthink the Russians. (Anderson 2007, 43)
In 1958, US Education Commissioner Lawrence Derthick reported
similar feelings. Education in Russia, he pointed out “elicited a kind of
grand passion” and the Soviet Union has “a burning desire to surpass the
United States in education, in productivity, in standards of living, in world
trade, and in athletics” (Dickson 2007, 227). This looming threat created
a political atmosphere supportive of the federal government’s nationalistic vision for education and its use of tax dollars to support this vision.
The core elements of America’s post-Sputnik educational identity,
increased federal oversight, competition, and national security, have had
unintended effects on public education. These unintended consequences
are not the result of one particular initiative or piece of legislation. Nor
can they be explained by establishing a straightforward cause and effect
relationship; rather, they are the result of an accumulation of federal policies, divisive politics, and socialized ways of thinking.
CONTEXT FOR TEACHERS: DESKILLING TEACHING;
STANDARDIZING CURRICULUM
Teacher roles were affected as business practices, political issues, and
events intersected in the 1950s, targeting schools and those who worked
in them. The process that ultimately allowed for mass production relied
on standardization and a regulated labor force in which the production of
a complex product was subdivided into discrete sections and actions by
workers. Managers oversaw the whole process, while individual workers
were responsible for only a small portion of the resulting product. This
process was tested and found successful in the 1940s when the manufacturing behemoth that was the US war machine provided the example.
In parallel with this approach that standardized manufacturing,
schools in America were influenced by what was happening in industry.
78 K. A. STEEVES, P. E. BERNHARDT, J. P. BURNS, AND M. K. LOMBARD
Early on, those in charge in education recognized the importance of the
relationship between schools and business. From Horace Mann’s annual
reports to the businessmen of Massachusetts in the 1840s to the standardization of school building design and development of Carnegie units for
graduation to the introduction of Taylorism to increase efficiency all are
examples of this connection (Cremin 1988).
The school-industry connection was strong and the ideas from one
were reflected in the work of the other. The launch of Sputnik, coming so
soon after WW II lent itself to an industrial approach – focus on the problem to be solved and apply business principles to form a solution. While
the launch of Sputnik represented a political/military issue, it required a
knowledge solution; the response was familiar—standardize to increase
output. The product – more scientists and mathematicians—became the
goal; the process was not the concern because the model was already in
place in manufacturing. But, unlike manufacturing, in which the product
can be readily standardized (and was); this was not as true for schools. In
both cases, those who worked in these professions saw changes in their
work life, increasingly controlled to achieve results.
Efficiency in industry resulted from equivalence of parts and process.
(Montgomery 1979; Hounshell 1985). In schooling, that meant making a
curriculum that was clear enough and standard in such a way that anyone
could teach it to any group of students. Along with the common school
day, common graduation requirements, common grades, the sameness
was also expected of teachers who were prepared in an increasingly standard way to teach in a standardized system in order to guarantee results.
Edelfelt and Raths (1998) describe the moves toward standardization in
the 1920s with National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education
(NCATE), and the Carnegie Foundation for Advancement of Teaching, in
the 1930s through the American Council on Education and the American
Association of Teacher Colleges in 1945.
This movement intensified after 1957. Beginning in the 1960s, the
preparation of teachers (the equivalent of the former craft workers of a
pre-assembly line factory) and a corresponding focus on how to define
“effective practice” came to the fore. Although a move to “competencybased” teacher preparation was slowed by the ongoing disagreement over
the “standards. (Edelfelt and Raths 1998, 12), there was also a focus on
how to make schools more efficient yet flexible enough to respond to
larger issues. The Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy (1985)
noted the importance of the link between economic growth and the skills
and abilities of citizens (Edelfelt and Raths 1988, 12). Many writers in
education decry the move to standardization in schooling as a “reductionist” view that reduces knowledge to information (Null 2002) and assessment to multiple choice tests (Kohn 1999; Bracey 2004). With a view
Transforming American Educational Identity after Sputnik 79
reminiscent of the move to standardize production, numbers or data are
developed to guide outcomes. As we enter the 21st century, “quality”,
“competition”, standards and standardization are terms that apply to both
schools and factories – to factory workers and teachers.
CURRICULAR CHANGE: SHIFTING NOTIONS OF KNOWLEDGE
No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA), similar to NDEA, subjugates schools
to the determination, conjectures, and unwavering ideology of the federal
government. A specific agenda is set, policies are put into place, and
results are expected. This bureaucratic process takes place, for the most
part, with little input, investment, or insight from classroom teachers.
NCLB’s reforms, which emphasize standardized knowledge, demand
mandated assessments, and provide prescribed instructional materials,
drastically reduce teacher autonomy. The high stakes nature of testing
places teachers in a role that, at times, seems more similar to a corporate
trainer hired to maximize resources, increase production, and boost company profits. Consequently, schools, principals, and teachers are forced to
compete against each other for higher test scores, praise and recognition,
and in some places, the lure of monetary compensation. Both the loss of
autonomy and the prevalence of competition in schools have significant
implications for the lives of both teachers and students.
NCLB distracts from the real work of teaching, learning, and experiencing curriculum. Teachers are not always encouraged to explore subject
matter in a deep and meaningful way, investigate topics outside the conventional framework, or create assessments emphasizing a variety of intelligences or different modalities of learning. Many public schools have
become repositories for prescription, objectivism, and scientific measurement. Consequently, a narrow set of standards delineating what every
child should learn is the centerpiece of classrooms, faculty meetings, and
professional development seminars. This approach has reduced schools,
teachers, and classrooms to disconnected entities encouraged to compete
for both resources and acknowledgment.
Writing about the impact of curriculum standardization on schools,
education scholar Charles Silberman argues, “[schooling] has been dominated by a perspective that might be best called “technological,” in that
the major interest guiding its work involves finding the one best set of
means to reach pre-chosen educational ends” (Apple 2004, 43). Sputnik’s
legacy is still present in the everyday lives of both teachers and students.
While its influence cannot be easily explained or quickly identified, its
unintended effects force schools to operate in certain ways, teachers to
think in certain ways, and students to experience curriculum in certain
80 K. A. STEEVES, P. E. BERNHARDT, J. P. BURNS, AND M. K. LOMBARD
ways. Inherent in pedagogy is a child’s vulnerability to physical, social,
emotional, and educational well-being. Within the learning process, both
the child and the adult develop a sense of understanding, both of themselves and the Other. Teaching is ethical, intentional with respect to the
relationality shared between student and teacher (Hatt 2005). Glasser (as
cited in Hatt 2005, 675) warned:
All our lives, we search for ways to satisfy our needs for love, belonging, caring, sharing, and co-operation. If a student feels no sense of belonging in a
school, no sense of being involved in caring and concern, that child will pay
little attention to academic subjects.
Aoki (as cited in Hatt 2005) refers to a synergy of two curricula, the curriculum-as-plan and the lived curricula. It is the lived curricula, or the
affective aspect of learning that often is dismissed or passed. The mastery of subject-content is approached by many students with a survivalof-the-fittest mentality. There is such great competition surrounding
success and achievement that it often becomes negative, especially for
marginalized students. This system and approach to teaching often further victimizes these students, as it fails to recognize or challenge their
affective learning. Ultimately, learning loses its intrinsic value, as there
is no connection between the curriculum-as-plan and the lived curricula, or the piece that makes it a lived experience. This does not even
take into account the hidden curriculum (that which is inadvertently
included) or the null curriculum (that which is deliberately excluded).
The result is that the teacher and the student share the same physical
space, but their needs are so different that communication is lost along
with the opportunity for learning (Hatt 2005). Elements of subjectivity,
including a lack of understanding and recognition of the other and personal values defining ‘the educated subject’ and the mediocrity and
competition inherent in such a desired result, are tied to nostalgia for
the past (Stone 2004). The student as a subject implies that a child is
boundable, measurable, and scientifically determined. As a group, they
conform to a standard of normality, one which makes everyone the
same. Meeting the standard makes one ‘normal’. Students who meet the
standard (whatever it may be) are considered normal, and the rest
remain marginalized (Stone 2004). Seemingly inclusionary curriculum is
such a cultural failure, or according to Young-Breul (as cited in Ringrose
2007, 339), “a social contradiction that disrupts assumptions of democracy and equality, inciting manic desire to repress its force and deny the
spectre of history.”
Transforming American Educational Identity after Sputnik 81
TOWARD THE PRESCRIBED CITIZEN
“Reds Better Schooled in Math and Science” read the headline of a short
story in the November 16, 1957 Science News Letter. The six-paragraph
story warned that the United States was on the verge of an education gap
along with veiled condemnation of the American education system, educators, students, and “Mr. and Mrs. Average American” (Society for Science & the Public 1957, 311). Sputnik, so the story went, was a “direct
result of Soviet Russia’s stressing the tough, hard subjects of mathematics
and sciences” (311). Soviet schools were training more children in math
and the sciences better and more quickly than American schools, which
had grown progressively soft due to the erroneous philosophy of Dewey
and anti-intellectualist educational trends such as life adjustment education. The “failure” of American schools placed American pride, its predominant position in world affairs, and the national interest at risk.
Sputnik would, the article hoped, arouse the American public and allow
educators to “’sell’ the necessity for a tougher curriculum” (311).
The Science News Letter article articulates both a critique of and vision
for American education. Our students, teachers, and philosophy of education had grown soft in a world of hard science. The American educational vision was peddling cooperation in an increasingly competitive
world. A good American citizen was not a “red,” thought scientifically, was
not soft, and could, most importantly, help the nation succeed in the competition between capitalism and communism. American education must
not only emphasize science, but it must be based on rational scientific
principles. We were, as Hyman Rickover (cited in Slobodin 1977, 260)
wrote in 1959, engulfed in the scientific revolution in which the “’verbal’
men are on the way out and the men who can handle the intricate mysteries of complex scientific and engineering projects are on the way in.”
Thus, the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) framed “mastery of
modern techniques, developed from complex scientific principles” as a
national security issue (Slobodin 1977, 260). Sputnik brought to crescendo arguments that the United States was facing a looming education
crisis and served as the event in which trends toward passage of federal
legislation culminated in the existing context of the Cold War (Anderson
2007, 42). Congress entertained debate about the need for an educational
response to Soviet technical achievements before Sputnik, but Sputnik
provided the grease by which legislators with an interest in modifying federal education policy were able to break the Congressional logjam. Representative Carl Elliott three weeks after the launch of Sputnik, warned,
“Some have termed this struggle between communism and the free world
as the war of the classroom” (Anderson 2007, 43).
82 K. A. STEEVES, P. E. BERNHARDT, J. P. BURNS, AND M. K. LOMBARD
Much as the Sputnik “crisis” proved the catalyst for federal action on
education policies that had been discussed for a decade, so A Nation at
Risk responded to the economic competitiveness crisis of the 1970s and
early 1980s. A Nation at Risk, which has informed federal education policy
for a quarter of a century, framed the current education “crisis” in terms
of competition, as did NDEA, only this time the competition has emerged
from our economic rivals. Explicit in the arguments surrounding Sputnik,
A Nation at Risk, and NCLBA, is a worldview based on zero-sum competition. There will be winners and losers in the global economic race and in
the American schoolhouse. Implicit in this stance is that we must marshal
and rationalize society and the institutions of the state, particularly the
schools, to produce an ideal citizen through the curriculum. Aside from
the effect that Sputnik, NDEA, and subsequent reform efforts have had
on the structuring of curriculum, how did they affect how we view the
good citizen? Embedded in our curriculum have been assumptions about
the type of people we want our schools to produce.
NDEA declared in Title I that the “defense of this Nation depends
upon the mastery of modern techniques developed from complex scientific principles” and “upon the discovery and development of new principles, new techniques, and new knowledge” (1581). We needed to correct
the “imbalances in our educational programs which [had] led to an insufficient proportion of our population educated in science, mathematics,
and modern foreign languages and trained in technology” (1581). NDEA,
therefore, prescribed the good student citizen as one who possessed the
technical skills needed to “meet the national defense needs of the United
States” (1582). Education as a matter of national security subjectivated
those best equipped to secure the nation in the terms defined by NDEA as
the good student citizen.
As the curricular discourse of the 1950s found expression in NDEA,
contemporary manifestations of the discourse surrounding American
education find expression in seminal documents such as A Nation at Risk,
legislation such as NCLBA, and in state curricula and standards.
Although we know from these documents that the architects of American
curriculum value educational initiatives in math and the sciences in order
to secure the nation from military and economic competition, how do
they describe the ideal American citizen? Modern social studies curriculum both represents the culmination of over a half century of education
reform initiatives and provides insight into how individuals are subjectivated as either good students or abject.
Documents and legislation, standards, programs of study, and scope
and sequence charts are what Foucault (1995) would characterize as the
tools by which to measure, differentiate, hierarchize, normalize, and subjectivate individuals. Applying Foucault's framework to one state’s stan-
Transforming American Educational Identity after Sputnik 83
dards illustrates how curriculum subjectivates one as good or abject.
Instruction is segmented and sequenced so that students perpetually recreate and master the essential knowledge socially required to “develop in
all students the requisite knowledge and skills for informed, responsible
participation in public life” (Board of Education 2001, 7). Students are
expected to master social studies concepts, but the reason for such mastery, to participate in an already existing socio-political construct, has
been prescribed. Other possibilities to question, to challenge, to change,
have been implicitly foreclosed.
We have long used the curriculum as the anvil on which citizens are
forged. From Jefferson’s philosophy of education for the preservation of
democracy through NCLBA’s education for global economic competitiveness, we have sought certain types of citizens through the schools. Sputnik
was a watershed event, because it introduced the crisis mentality into the
development and implementation of education policy and equated curriculum with the overall security of the nation. This mindset inherent in
curriculum development as response to external threat has permeated
education policy to the present day. This brief examination of an historic
event and its relevance to the curriculum of citizenship raises questions.
What kind of student/citizen do we really want and why? Perhaps most
important, who decides? What is the role of the school and the teacher?
CONCLUSION: RESPONSES TO CHANGE
Has Sputnik’s launch resulted in a change in the culture of schooling?
Not specifically. Rather, in examining curriculum, students, governance,
and teaching, Sputnik represents the crisis that, like many crises in US
history, resulted in attention to schools. Like manufacturing, changes in
the education “industry” required changes in the culture and the workforce. In the case of teachers, the crisis did not result in the magnitude of
change that was evident in industry. We do mass produce automobiles and
computers; not yet students. This view of knowledge and of curriculum
(as chunks of information) may help managerial-minded reformers to
reduce education to an engineering problem, but it does not capture the
complexity of teaching, learning, curriculum, and knowledge (Null 2002).
It appeared that many industrial workers did accept the new system of
mass production in the early 20th century and worked the lines without
complaint. However, there is constant evidence that this was not the case
for all. (Montgomery 1979; Edwards 1979; Meyer 1981) What happened
to these workers as their workplace changed over the next decades– central location, repetitive tasks, limited training and rules that were administered by managers who had became a new level of workers entirely.
84 K. A. STEEVES, P. E. BERNHARDT, J. P. BURNS, AND M. K. LOMBARD
Worker roles were reduced in scope and the control by management
increased and become more restrictive (Noble 1977). In industrial jobs,
workers resisted, not in burning looms as the Luddites in Britain, but in
public ways–from organizing or marching, to more subtle ways–employing knowledge that would put them in a position of power over supervisors on the “shop floor”. They also challenged their role by gaining new
knowledge, becoming managers, developing new industries. As an example, the high tech industries that developed after the 1970s reflect a new
“artisan”. The patterns inherent in the development of mass production
were not lost within the new industries; they have become a blend of craft
tradition and mass production enterprises.
Ultimately the attempts to increasingly standardize the education
enterprise using the “crisis” of the Cold War, also met with resistance.
Teachers did not always respond to new curriculum, new standards or new
preparation by just “going along.” Like the artisans who crafted the
machine tools of another era, teachers also explore ways to advocate for
themselves, to use their acquired knowledge and experience to control
their own environment and to force thinking about education as an enterprise different from that of manufacturing.
Organizations established to standardize teaching now add teacher
voices. Business organizations such as the Business Roundtable and the
National Chamber of Commerce increasingly include teachers in discussions – although not without urging. Other organizations began to
respond to teachers by the development of such systems as the National
Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) which was specifically teacher directed. “Teacher empowerment” became a focus in organizations–both discipline specific (NCSS, NCTM, NCTE, etc.) and general
teacher associations (AFT, NEA, ASCD, etc). Teachers have taken on new
roles within schools as mentors, lead teachers, department chairs, and
content specialists. Teachers have become more knowledgeable about
classroom practice and the impact of outside standards on the success of
the students they serve. Teachers are interested in policy. And, while the
numbers of educators in management roles has expanded as it has in
industry, teachers in leadership roles often remain in the classroom where
they have experiences with real students, and can observe first hand the
effects of the standardization movement on students. They became advocates – locally, state wide and federal.
Yes, schools have changed since the 1950s. Expectations for teachers
changed, accountability increased, but it did not create a nation of “workers in schools”; rather it has created an increasingly savvy group of educators. By stating their case against standardization, teachers are bringing
education into the American consciousness, not just as a cookie cutter
solution to every crisis, but as a long-term foundation for a stronger coun-
Transforming American Educational Identity after Sputnik 85
try, whether economically or politically, to provide knowledge. As the
experts leading the discussion and providing the examples–teachers who
must ultimately have control of their classrooms and of the education
enterprise can resist the trend line seen after Sputnik and other “Crises”
that have encouraged more centralization and standardization.
Perhaps American education is in crisis, but not for the same reasons
that many believe. The crisis is not that of competition, but that of meaning. Revolt means to reconstitute memory, to reinterpret the present and
the past, to question, and to appraise the values that surround us
(Kristeva 2002). The goal is not comfort, but movement and meaning.
The missing piece of the puzzle is that which connects post-Sputnik education with other social movements of the time, inside and outside of education. Therefore, education itself remained marginalized. Action in
education was not brought about as a result of revolt, of true meaning and
movement; it was brought on and has been perpetuated, or renewed, by
fear. As a result, education has remained rather stagnant; actually frozen
in time. An exclusionary system has remained just that.
The influence of Sputnik was not temporally bound and its impact
transformed the philosophical and pedagogical foundations of public
schooling. Policy discussions exclusively focus on the ills of education and
how they can be cured, and as the federal government has become more
involved in the process of implementing its national vision, teacher
autonomy has waned while competition has drastically increased. If the
past 50 years are used as a measure, there is no doubt America’s educational identity will continue to be effected by and react to Sputnik’s lingering tremors.
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