More than science and Sputnik

""The National Defense Education Act broke a logjam of opposition to federal aid to elementary and secondary education in 1958. Many believe that the launch of the Soviet's Sputnik satellite enabled the bill's proponents to get it through Congress. But historians have pointed out that the scientific community's pressure for science and math education started long before Sputnik. Now Wayne Urban's exciting new book takes that argument a big step further. He argues that we must see this in the more general context of the agendas of politicians like Congressman Carl Elliott and Senator Lister Hill, white liberals from Alabama, to achieve federal education aid in any form, for whatever reason. They allied with President Eisenhower and the young Assistant Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, Elliott Richardson, to move the NDEA through Congress, each for his own reasons.^ Urban's assessment is loaded with fresh insights about the meaning and legacy of this act for the various players, including also the scientific community and the National Education Association. Bravo." --Carl Kaestle, Professor Emeritus of Education, History, and Public Policy at Brown University<BR><BR>"Urban