Dr. Scott Baker is Associate Professor of Education at Wake Forest University where he teaches courses on education policy and social justice. His research focuses on the history of African American education, school desegregation, and the effects of test based accountability. Professor Baker’s publications have appeared in the History of Education Quarterly, Education Policy Analysis Archives, the American Journal of Education, and the Teachers College Record. He has served on the editorial board of the History of Education Quarterly. He is currently working on a history of African American education in North Carolina from 1954 to 2010.
- Associate Professor of Education, Department of Education
- Ph.D., Columbia University, 1993
- M.A., Tufts University, 1985
- B.A., The Evergreen State College, 1979
- Faculty Member, Institute for Urban Education, Barnard College
- Instructor, Smith College
- Instructor, Northeastern University
- University Supervisor, Columbia University
- History Teacher, School-Within-A School Brookline High School
- Teacher, Upward Bound Program
- Book Chapter, “African American Education in the Age of Accountability.” In Dionne Dans, Michelle Purdy, and Christopher Span, eds. Using The Past as Prologue: Contemporary Perspectives on African American Educational History. (Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishers, 2015).
- Article, “Desegregation, Minimum Competency Testing, and the Origins of Accountability: North Carolina and the Nation.” History of Education Quarterly, 55 (February 2015): 33-57.
- Article, “Pedagogies of Protest: African American Teachers and the Civil Rights Movement, 1940-1963.” Teachers College Record, (December 2011): 2778-2804.
- Book Paradoxes of Desegregation: African American Struggles for Educational Equity in Charleston, South Carolina, 1926-1972. (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2006)
- Panelist and Discussant on John Rury’s “An Age of Accountability,” presented at annual meeting of the History of Education Society, Atlanta, GA, November 2023.
- “The Past, Present, and Future of SWS,” chaired session at 50th Anniversary of School Within a School, Brookline, MA, June 11, 2022.
- “Echoes of Equality,” paper presented at History of Education Society, San Diego, November 4, 2021.
- “Elusive Equality,” paper presented at the International History of Education Conference, Obero, Sweden, June 15, 2020 (held on zoom because of covid).
- “Desegregating Educational Space, 1968-1980,” Presented at the International History of Education Conference, Porto, Portugal, July 19, 2019.