The recent 50th anniversary of the Sputnik launch produced a veritable chorus of reminiscences and soul searching about the past and future of science education in the West. Google News lists 233 stories dealing with this and most of them say something similar to...

America, we have a problem  ... Not too long ago, we led the world in exports, from textiles and apparel to sophisticated aircraft and machine tools. Today, we cannot boast of any such leadership. In fact, six years ago, even our high-tech balance-of-trade fell into the red for the first time since the end of World War II. ...

A lot of credible and incredible stories are told about the past, present and future state of affairs but little systematic research gets cited. That should be a concern, particularly given some of the problems with educational scare-mongering revealed in Berliner's and Biddle's Manufactured Crisis.