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"Scribner, Campbell F"
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A Is for Arson
In A Is for Arson
, Campbell F. Scribner sifts through two centuries of
debris to uncover the conditions that have prompted school
vandalism and to explain why attempts at prevention have inevitably
failed. Vandalism costs taxpayers hundreds of millions of
dollars every year, as students, parents, and even teachers wreak
havoc on school buildings. Why do they do it? Can anything stop
them? Who should pay for the damage? Underlying these questions are
long-standing tensions between freedom and authority, and between
wantonness and reason.
Property destruction is not simply a moral failing, to be
addressed with harsher punishments, nor can the problem be solved
through more restrictive architecture or policing. Scribner argues
that education itself is a source of intractable struggle, and that
vandalism is often the result of an unruly humanity. To understand
schooling in the United States, one must first confront the
all-too-human emotions that have led to fires, broken windows, and
graffiti.
A Is for Arson captures those emotions through new
historical evidence and diverse theoretical perspectives, helping
readers understand vandalism variously as a form of political
conflict, as self-education, and as sheer chaos. By analyzing
physical artifacts as well as archival sources, Scribner offers new
perspectives on children's misbehavior and adults' reactions and
allows readers to see the complexities of education-the built
environment of teaching and learning, evolving approaches to youth
psychology and student discipline-through the eyes of its often
resistant subjects.
eBook
The Fight for Local Control
Throughout the twentieth century, local control of school districts was one of the most contentious issues in American politics. As state and federal regulation attempted to standardize public schools, conservatives defended local prerogative as a bulwark of democratic values. Yet their commitment to those values was shifting and selective. InThe Fight for Local Control, Campbell F. Scribner demonstrates how, in the decades after World War II, suburban communities appropriated legacies of rural education to assert their political autonomy and in the process radically changed educational law.
Scribner's account unfolds on the metropolitan fringe, where rapid suburbanization overlapped with the consolidation of thousands of small rural schools. Rural residents initially clashed with their new neighbors, but by the 1960s the groups had rallied to resist government oversight. What began as residual opposition to school consolidation would transform into campaigns against race-based busing, unionized teachers, tax equalization, and secular curriculum. In case after case, suburban conservatives carved out new rights for local autonomy, stifling equal educational opportunity.
Yet Scribner also provides insight into why many conservatives have since abandoned localism for policies that stress school choice and federal accountability. In the 1970s, as new battles arose over unions, textbooks, and taxes, districts on the rural-suburban fringe became the first to assert individual choice in the form of school vouchers, religious exemptions, and a marketplace model of education. At the same time, they began to embrace tax limitation and standardized testing, policies that checked educational bureaucracy but bypassed local school boards. The effect, Scribner concludes, has been to reinforce inequalities between districts while weakening participatory government within them, keeping the worst aspects of local control in place while forfeiting its virtues.
eBook
Surveying the Destruction of African American Schoolhouses in the South, 1864–1876
This essay surveys the destruction of 631 African American schools during the Reconstruction era. Drawing from newspaper reports, congressional testimony, and the archives of the Freedmen's Bureau, it provides the most comprehensive account to date of violence against African American education in the postwar South. However, acknowledging that the total number of schools destroyed was probably far higher, the article also explores the forces that obscured evidence of attacks and precluded a more accurate count, particularly a lack of systematic attention to the issue in Freedmen's Bureau reports and the political machinations of congressional Democrats.
Journal Article
American Teenagers, Educational Exchange, and Cold War Politics
The following article documents the expansion of high school exchange programs during the Cold War. It also examines the potential conflicts underlying that expansion, which relied on preexisting networks of government agencies and private philanthropies and sometimes conflated the rhetoric of world peace with a narrower pursuit of American interests. Ultimately, the article contends, experiences abroad prompted teenagers to criticize American foreign policy and to reform their sponsoring organizations along increasingly multilateral, anti-colonial, and socially conscious lines.
Journal Article
Beyond the Metropolis: The Forgotten History of Small-Town Teachers’ Unions
This article examines the legal and political significance of teacher unionization in rural and suburban school districts between 1960 and 1975. While most historians focus on the growth of unions in urban areas, strikes in outlying districts played a determinative role in the development of public sector labor law, particularly in the arbitration of professional rights and democratic oversight. After summarizing the relationship between unions and school boards in rural and suburban school districts, the article describes the legal impact of teacher strikes in those areas. It concludes with a discussion of the changes to public sector labor law during the 1970s and a brief reflection on the importance of small-town teachers’ unions today.
Journal Article
Backtalk: Vandalism is a test that we have to pass
The 2021-22 school year brought with it a wave of vandalism, much of it taking place in school vandalism. Campbell Scribner explains that such vandalism is not new and briefly traces the history of bathroom vandalism and how schools have responded. He urges school leaders to respond not with undue suspicion and surveillance, but with an eye to promoting student autonomy and growth.
Journal Article
“Make Your Voice Heard”: Communism in the High School Curriculum, 1958–1968
The launch of Sputnik in 1957 sparked a crisis in American education. Suddenly threatened by superior Soviet technology, progressive educators' concern for children's preferences, health, and adjustment in school yielded to public demands for more basic learning and academic skills. Congress soon passed the National Defense Education Act, providing millions of dollars for math, science, and foreign language instruction. By the early 1960s, educators and academics began to reexamine other aspects of the curriculum as well. Their efforts prompted two changes in the social studies: one was a shift from worksheets and memorization to the investigative approach of the “new social studies,” the other a requirement that schools teach about the specter of international Communism. Much has been written about the first of these reforms, surprisingly little about the second. Yet, insofar as the new social studies grew out of Cold War imperatives, instruction about Communism provides an interesting perspective on its tenure in American schools. In fact, a closer examination of the relationship between the two might force us to reconsider current assumptions about the nature of curriculum reform during the period.
Journal Article