How did public education change in the Cold War years?

Public education was blamed for the Soviets getting an object into earth's orbit first with the launch of Sputnik. It was a media myth. The reality was the in 1956 the four-stage Jupiter C rocket reached a speed of 13,000 miles per hour after the third stage, but the fourth stage was filled with sand. Had the fourth stage been live, it could have easily bumped into orbit. However, President Eisenhower understood it was better not be first. Space is a "free" territory because Eisenhower negotiated it that way with the Soviets after Sputnik. Unfortunately, the media myths led to a testing-mania that is alive and well today (and hell-bent on destroying quality public education).

In the early days of the Cold War itself, American historians would have answered, nearly unanimously, that the Soviets started the Cold War. Josef Stalin was an evil dictator, propelled by an evil Communist ideology to attempt world domination. Appeasement hadn't worked against Hitler, and appeasement wouldn't work against Stalin either. An innocent America had only reluctantly joined the Cold War to defend the Free World from otherwise inevitable totalitarian conquest.

From shmoop

Once the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, the "space race" was on.

In order to keep pace or outdo the Soviets, math and science education was ramped up.

Unfortunately, things went downhill once the Cold War was over and the Soviet Union went the way of the dinosaur.

Now, the US is something like 25th in education worldwide. Sad.