A two-year study by the Office of Education released in November 1957 revealed a basic difference between the U.S. and Soviet school systems. Soviet education was authoritarian and aimed at the fulfillment of the state's needs. Soviet students had a rigid program of study, small class sizes, and well-educated teachers. That contrasted with the U.S. system, wherein "the goal of education is the development of each individual . . . with freedom and with opportunity to choose his life's work in his best interests" and in which curricula, class sizes, and teacher shortages were pervasive problems. The study also noted that the clear emphasis placed upon science and technology in Soviet schools was lacking in the U.S. system. To many Americans the flight of Sputnik a month earlier underscored the need for change.
In 1958 a Soviet-U.S. cultural exchange agreement brought twenty Soviet students and.....
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