Steven Wilson on The Lost Decade: Returning to the Fight for Better Schools in America

The Learning Curve Steven Wilson

[00:00:00] Albert Cheng: Well, hello everybody. And welcome to yet another episode of the learning curve podcast. I’m one of your co hosts, Albert Cheng from the university of Arkansas and co hosting with me this week is none other than Alisha, Alisha Thomas Searcy. Sorry about that. Whoa. I’d say you’d figure that we do enough shows that I’d say your name, right?

[00:00:25] Alisha Searcy We only talk every week, Albert. It’s okay.

[00:00:26] Albert Cheng: Anyway, hope you’re doing well. You know, we’ve got an exciting show today.

[00:00:28] Alisha Searcy: Yes, we do. I’m very much looking forward to this conversation.

[00:00:31] Albert Cheng: Yeah, yeah, we got Stephen Wilson coming in to talk about his new book. It’s forthcoming, The Lost Decade. I’m just going to get into that and, and his work and background in school reform and some of the, really the conversation I think that really needs to happen.

[00:00:46] We’re talking about school reform, but yeah, well, till then though, we should talk some news first, Alisha. And you know, I found an article that I think really sets the stage for the conversation we’re going to have with. Stephen Wilson. So the headline that caught my eye was New York city charter school is so crammed that choir practices in stairwell, students in broom closets.

[00:01:12] Um, yeah. Wow. And so, look, I mean, this is an issue that’s been. Prevalent for quite a bit, you know, charters not having access to as much capital funding to expand their buildings. I mean, this is a story about success academy. So one of the really high performing charter school networks in New York city.

[00:01:31] And I mean, just take a look at some of the pictures. You’ve got photos of their students, their choir kind of practicing the stairwell, you know, not able to kind of rehearse all the moves fully. Cause they’re all kind of standing shoulder to shoulder. And not only is this a policy. Issue about kind of having access to capital funding, but, you know, New York City, as the article mentions is one of these cities that has a cap on charter schools.

[00:01:54] And so, you know, the Department of Ed there, I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but there’s something going on. That’s really not letting this really high performing charter school. Expands and deal with this problem. Look enrollments, first thing at the seams, the demands there by parents who want this kind of education, but well, you know, politics and other interests kind of get in the way.

[00:02:18] So anyway, check out that article, at least, I don’t know if you have an immediate reaction to that, but of course I do, you

[00:02:25] Alisha Searcy: know, Albert today we’re having some, I think controversial conversations and that’s okay. And so I’m going to add to the controversy and save this as a Democrat. And we don’t. Talk a lot about politics and that’s intentional on this podcast.

[00:02:38] But as a Democrat, you know, we’re having all these discussions nationally about equity and in some places it’s a bad word. But as a Democrat and thinking about the city of New York, like the bastion of Democratic politics, how it is acceptable for kids whose parents are taxpayers to have to practice in stairwells and be in broom closets and don’t have the adequate facilities in a public school should be unacceptable.

[00:03:12] It should not matter the type of public school kids are attending. We should all make sure and want to make sure that they have the facilities that they need, that they have access to a high quality education. And so it’s just frustrating to me. You can’t say you believe in equity on one hand, and then when it’s time to do things that are equitable for children, All of a sudden, politics and your desire to, you know, politicize and weaponize schools takes over.

[00:03:44] And so it’s frustrating to me. I’m happy to see that, you know, schools are continuing to have opportunity in New York. But again, there’s a cap. And so when you think about the NAEP scores, you think about all of the things, all of the indicators, right, that The education system is not well, it seems to me we would be doing more to provide opportunities, not less.

[00:04:06] Albert Cheng: Yeah, I hear, hear. And speaking of opportunity, I think your story gets a little bit of, well, it’s a different kind of opportunity, I think.

[00:04:12] Alisha Searcy: It is. And I chose this in particular because as you can tell from the tone of my previous commentary, um, I’m a little bit frustrated right now with what’s happening and, you know, The fact that we’re just not educating kids well and so came across the story from education next and it’s entitled high school students get a jump on college.

[00:04:35] I love this because it’s talking about kids in Massachusetts, in particular, who are attending. Dual enrollment courses. And so one of the things that I love is that a student is talking about. This is a quote from her. I lost my passion for school. Now I feel purposeful, like I’m achieving something. I feel like I can.

[00:04:57] I have to act more mature. Watch how I say stuff and what I say. I know how to read a syllabus and what to do when I get onto campus. This isn’t a new environment anymore. And so she’s talking about the ability to attend dual enrollment courses. I love the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of students, probably more than that, across the country who are participating in dual enrollment programs.

[00:05:25] I bet you probably participated in them. I did too when I was in high school. When I got to college, I was already a sophomore. It allowed me to have a double major at Spelman because I already had a lot of credits towards one of my majors. And so this is a huge investment. I think it’s a bipartisan effort.

[00:05:44] I remember the number now. It’s about 2. 5 million high school students, or 16 percent took at least one college course. by August of 2024. So this is phenomenal. And so I like talking about the positive things. Yes, that are happening in public education as well, where you have students who may, you know, it taught the article also talks about a particular student who is just thinking about kind of going to a vocational program after high school, but after being exposed to these college courses.

[00:06:15] Through dual enrollment. Now they’re talking about going to a four year college or university. That’s why we want dual enrollment. We want dual enrollment because when students do enter college, it could also cut down on the time that it takes to graduate. It cuts down on the costs, right? Because you’re already have course credits.

[00:06:34] So there’s nothing but upside to making sure there’s this kind of access available to all students across the country in all types of communities.

[00:06:44] Albert Cheng: Yeah. Well, thanks for sharing that story. I know, you know, we, we ought to always be reminded, you know, that there are folks out there doing great work, pockets of excellence to be celebrated and to inspire us.

[00:06:55] So, yeah, let’s keep rooting for, for the work people are doing. And certainly I know, just put my researcher hat a little bit, pretty good research on the outcomes of these kinds of dual enrollment programs. And it looks like it’s, it’s making the world a better place. And so let’s hope for more of this kind of stuff.

[00:07:11] Alisha Searcy: That’s right. Well, I appreciate that official stamp from the Dr. Albert Chang, that this is good stuff. Well,

[00:07:19] Albert Cheng: I mean, I think you’re overstating my authority here, but anyway, Hey everybody, we got a great interview on the flip side of the break. Steven Wilson is going to join us and talk about his new book that’s coming out.

[00:07:31] The last decade. So stick around for that.

[00:07:51] Steven Wilson is a senior fellow at pioneer institutes and education entrepreneur, policymaker, and writer. He co founded the national summer school initiative to accelerate learning and build teacher capacity in the aftermath of the pandemic. Stephen founded and built Ascend Learning, a network of tuition free liberal arts charter schools in central Brooklyn.

[00:08:12] The Center for Research on Educational Outcomes, CREDO, at Stanford University identified Ascend as, quote, a gap busting network for its success in closing achievement gaps of race and income. His first book, Reinventing the Schools, A radical plan for Boston drove the development and passage of the Massachusetts charter school law.

[00:08:31] Stephen’s new book, The Lost Decade, Returning to the Fight for Better Schools in America, will be published by Pioneer in winter 2025. Stephen, welcome to the show. It’s a pleasure to have you back on. Wonderful to be here as always. Before we get to your new book, The Lost Decade, Returning to the Fight for Better Schools in America, let’s talk about some of your older work.

[00:08:54] So in the early 90s, you authored an influential book, Reinventing the Schools, A Radical Plan for Boston. Let’s map out your background here. I mean, you’ve been at this for a while. Share with our listeners how you first became interested in K 12 school reform, as well as your own educational outlook that’s informed both of these books.

[00:09:15] Steven Wilson: Sure. Well, my beginnings is kind of a cliche. I was a college dropout. I started a small tech company back in the 80s, and then I went back to school 9 years later to complete my undergraduate degree. It was there that I met Nathan Glazer, the great sociologist. I was teaching a class on the history of the New York City schools and I wrote a class paper proposing what I called entrepreneurial schools, which would be new schools that were strictly accountable to government for results, but had new privileges, more autonomy and more authority to get the job done.

[00:09:51] And that was on the board of Pioneer at that point on the advisory board. And one thing led to another and I wrote the book that you mentioned And really that outlook has stayed with me all the way through today. I was struck by the clash of culture between the entrepreneurial world that I knew, which was all about, you know, about boldness, about trying to get done what others had not, and staying up all night if need be.

[00:10:18] And the thrill of all that, and the kind of sclerotic, can’t do culture of the Boston Public Schools in places like it, that accepted failure. And it’s that It’s the tension between those two ways of being, those two worldviews that really has motivated all of my work.

[00:10:35] Albert Cheng: Well, thanks for sharing that. And, and certainly I, I, you know, I want to recommend the forthcoming book to our listeners, you know, cause I, I mean, I had the treat to review the manuscript and you do talk about some of this.

[00:10:46] background. So, but let’s keep talking about this background, you know, so providing students wherever they’re from access to an education that’s, you know, high in academic quality, you know, a rich liberal arts kind of education, humanities, you know, having internationally competitive math and science programs.

[00:11:04] I mean, Doing this kind of stuff was certainly something you were passionate about. And I’d say it was, it was a hallmark of the landmark Massachusetts education reform act in 1993. So say a bit more about your background, your experience there. You know, you worked with governor welds and shared, you know, your expertise with lots of folks are involved with that.

[00:11:24] So tell us more about your experience there and how that really contributed to reform in Massachusetts.

[00:11:30] Steven Wilson: Well, 1st of all, I have to tell you, Al, it was a totally thrilling time to work in government and to work on education reform specifically. And I wish I could evoke it for you just to tell you a little bit about that particular situation.

[00:11:43] Massachusetts. There was a business group called Massachusetts Business Alliance for education that had put out a white paper. It’s called every child winner that decried the conditions. of the state schools, really mediocre at best in a state of, of course, tremendous intellectual and economic wealth.

[00:12:04] It’s hard today, I think, to imagine the business community coming together with that same common purpose today, that sense of civic obligation, but we had that then. And two years later, we had the Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993, which led in due course to what we are today. referred to as the Massachusetts miracle.

[00:12:26] The state went to the top where it remains of the 50 states. And so one of the things I look at in my book is why it worked in Massachusetts and not so well, or not at all in, in other states. Because if you think about it, the policy components of the act superficially were not all that. different. You had standards, you had annual testing, you had some degree of choice, and so on.

[00:12:52] But it was the strength of the policy particulars that set it apart. And what I wanted to examine in this part of the book is, what were those strengths and where did they come from? And I attribute it to the architects of the plan, the four architects, not just Governor Bill Weld, but the Senate President Bill Bolger, the two co chairs.

[00:13:15] Of the legislature’s education committee and they shared this incredible formative experience for all their differences, which were a mess. They’d all benefited from a rich liberal arts education. So they had that in common. This appreciation for what that had given them the lifelong gifts that had bestowed on them.

[00:13:39] And also the flip side of that shared revulsion. Really, that’s the right word for the low performance of the public schools. And that common belief drove the Education Reform Act, not only while they were still there, but through all of the successors, the Jim Pisers, the Abby Thornstroms, the Sandra Stotskys, who built the act over the next decade.

[00:14:03] It was driven by that formative set of convictions. Overstate how different these guys were. You know, you had Bill Bulger, a child of devout Irish Catholic parents, grew up in Southie, you had Bill Weld, Brahman mainline, as wealthy as you can be, ran against state government, the government that Bulger presided over, and I could go on and on.

[00:14:28] Mark Roosevelt, you know, The Democratic House Chair of the Education Committee ran against Weld for governor and called him aloof and lazy, and yet they came together for this purpose. It’s really a great story.

[00:14:43] Albert Cheng: Well, let’s talk about one more name in this story, Linda Brown, who, you know, certainly played her parts, founder of Building Excellent Schools, which is one of the preeminent charter public schools.

[00:14:54] She did lots of what training and kind of incubating really for establishing schools that really when you kind of know now from from research, you know, did wonders for closing achievement gaps for students from poor minority backgrounds. Tell us about Linda and her approach to recruiting teachers training them.

[00:15:13] Cultivating leaders and just that piece of really building schools to make the Reform Act a success. And it was,

[00:15:21] Steven Wilson: yeah, well, Linda, I think the first thing that we should know about Linda, who sadly we lost about a year ago, is that she was a force of nature. She was 1 of those people who just possessed tremendous will and stamina and drive.

[00:15:37] She. Cared about 1 thing, which was results for students. She focused not on process, but on results and building excellent schools, which she began actually initially as a program of pioneer had a couple of dimensions to it. It trained, as you said, aspiring charter school founders, urban charter schools, and it had two ways of achieving excellence.

[00:16:02] The first was the selection effect, who she looked for, and the second was how she trained them, how she imbued them with certain. attitudes and approaches. For the first, what she did is she looked for people who were like her, people who would stop at nothing, who were relentless, who were willing to work as hard as necessary to get it done.

[00:16:26] This is a very out of fashion idea, which is partly why BS has stumbled of late. But it’s obviously key to it. Starting a high performing new school is a brutally difficult enterprise and she looked for people who are willing to do the work. And then the second element was the training. And the secret sauce of BES is that the fellows would visit dozens of ultra high performing urban schools and not just kind of look at them from afar, but go and sit in the back of the classrooms, watch arrival, watch dismissal, and Linda’s right hand woman who was formidable herself, Sue Walsh, would then thin slice with the fellows what they were seeing.

[00:17:11] Why did that class work? Why did the teacher begin the lesson that way? And so they, they absorbed all of these particular practices and drew from them to create their own school. And it worked. And it led to the founding of fabulous schools all around the country. I will name just one, the classical schools in New York, now a network, the highest performing charter school network.

[00:17:38] In the city, even stronger results than the great success Academy and what classical shows is that we don’t have to stand for this. We don’t have to stand for systems that fail half their kids. 90 percent or more of students at classical who come from great poverty are proficient or advanced.

[00:17:59] Albert Cheng: That’s encouraging, you know, to hear these pockets of excellence that are there.

[00:18:03] And certainly, you know, we want to think through a bit more of how to, how do we get more of this? Pretty much folks all know the NAEP scores were just released, 2024 NAEP scores, and results were definitely lackluster. Talk about schools ill serving their students. We’ve continued to see the decline and stagnation that began over a decade ago and worsened only during the pandemic.

[00:18:23] So how does your book, The Lost Decade fit into this larger NAEP narrative?

[00:18:29] Steven Wilson: First of all, the latest NAPE results, unfortunately, come as no surprise. We have known for several years now that when students returned to school from the pandemic, they were catastrophically behind. And if we were to have caught them up, we would have had to radically accelerate learning, especially in large urban districts where students lag the most.

[00:18:54] It would have had to take the form of a concerted Drive to improve classroom instruction, but despite the infusion of a staggering 189 billion dollars and new funds from the federal government districts really did nothing of the sort and in many places instead, what happened is that schools turned away from improving instruction, whatever meager efforts they had going on in that department, and instead invested very heavily in what I refer to.

[00:19:26] Um, As social justice education, which had little to do with academics, in fact, was shot through with a lot of anti academic and anti achievement messages. Schools claim to be empowering students while failing to educate them. And that’s really the. the theme of the book. That’s why I call it the Lost Decade, because at precisely the midpoint of the decade, we can see that this approach is significantly failing students.

[00:19:55] And in our highest performing schools, the kind of schools that we were talking about just a moment ago, we have seen individual schools like Boston Collegiate in Boston, which was A tremendously high flying school or the Achievement First Network, a glorious network of urban charter schools in New York City have fallen dramatically.

[00:20:18] They’ve lost about two thirds of their premium over the urban districts in which they’re located. And I attribute that loss to this turning away from the North Star. Of great teaching. It’s a tremendous loss. We are at risk of turning away from the greatest success in urban educational improvement of the last 100 years, which is urban charters.

[00:20:47] And we need to get back to what was working.

[00:20:51] Alisha Searcy: Well, that’s a great way for me to jump in. Very interesting observations, and I definitely want to learn more. The Columbia University linguist and New York Times columnist John McWhorter has written quite an elegant forward to your book. Can you summarize and discuss his forward and explain more, as you’ve already started talking about, the connection between his writings and your findings in The Lost Decade?

[00:21:17] Steven Wilson: Absolutely, Alisha. So I’m thrilled that John wrote the four to the book and provides his insights. And, you know, in the four, he begins with this very intriguing anecdote from his years at Berkeley, when he was starting as a linguistics professor. And at that time, the Oakland school board was claiming that black students were lagging, um, In grades and scores, because the schools were teaching them standard English, rather than their home dialect of bonnets.

[00:21:50] Now, that may seem Fargo, but it is a connection that he draws, which is very, very interesting. And as the areas, very esteemed black linguist, he was asked to comment and his claim was that students weren’t learning because. They were not being taught this second language, but because the quality of instruction was so poor and for this stance, he was ostracized.

[00:22:18] He was not allowed to have an opinion as he writes in the forward. He had departed from the scripture of the time. And I think that that story. Perfectly anticipates the period that we’re living through now, where attention is again, diverted from the actual problem, which is the poor quality of teaching tirelessly low expectations of what students can know and do.

[00:22:44] And instead, the problem is identified as. Something else, so an enormous amount of energy goes into training teachers and things like the symptoms of white supremacy culture, instead of becoming fascinated by how we can improve the experience for kids in the classroom.

[00:23:04] Alisha Searcy: Okay, so the murder of George Floyd caused.

[00:23:09] Among the most dramatic protests in American cities, understandably so, and that we have seen for many decades. Can you talk about. What your book has to say about the relationship between the curricular outlook of K 12 education, race and class based politics, and the pedagogy found in many schools of education and school districts?

[00:23:31] Steven Wilson: Yeah, well, that’s, that’s, that’s a lot. But look, I mean, what’s interesting here, I think, is that all of us who care about Schools in America start with a common vantage point, which is that the continuing disparities of race and class in educational outcomes are persistent and completely unacceptable, a betrayal of America’s ideals and the murder of George Floyd.

[00:24:05] And the racial reckoning that followed the largest protests in American history could have lit a fire in urban schools to at last address these disparities, but that’s not what happened instead of. Radically raising the expectations of students, accelerating teaching, getting rid of exclusionary discipline, all of these problems.

[00:24:36] Instead of focusing on that, we really took a very different turn. And that’s, I think, a mistake and it’s not too late at mid decade to say. We need to focus on what matters, which is that within these four walls, we have what it takes. We have the tools to ensure that every child is educated, that curiosity is lit in every child, that every child has the experience of a rigorous, vibrant education.

[00:25:11] And that’s what the book is really about, how we can do that and how we can redeem this decade. In school reform.

[00:25:20] Alisha Searcy: That’s very helpful. I appreciate that. I want to turn to talking a little bit more about public charter schools in particular. And so for decades now, public charter schools have been unfortunately very controversial, but in recent years, charter school politics have become even more complicated and contentious as the urban political landscape in places like D.

[00:25:43] C. New York, Boston and other places across the country have become balkanized. What does your book have to tell us about the curricular or political fads within charter schools and their success bridging achievement gaps?

[00:25:59] Steven Wilson: That I think is precisely the right question. So I’d like to to talk for a second about what I identify in the book.

[00:26:07] As the causes of the decline in many of the highest performing charters, which I think is putting the whole sector at risk. And I attribute it to in significant part what is happening, or what has been happening on college campuses, because that is where aspiring new teachers are educated and charter schools for better or worse have, of course, relied on very young talent, often brand new teachers.

[00:26:37] And so you see a complete turn and who’s in a building over a relatively short amount of time. And so what I’m referring to is the kind of illiberal intolerant mindset on many campuses, the kind of Manichaean mindsets where there’s one right way to think, where dissenters are branded as heretics who are to be censured and cancelled.

[00:27:04] Where speech that people disagree with is called violence. It’s really a very profound turning away from the liberal arts commitments of higher education. A liberal arts education ought to be one that invites you to wrestle, really even to revel in views that are not your own. And to give you the chance to change your mind, which is a fabulous experience, right?

[00:27:31] Instead, we found that on these campuses, we have a culture of fragility and incapacity, the notion that everyone is traumatized. It’s a turning away from a culture that used to prize fortitude, strength. And so when teachers who were acculturated, In these kinds of beliefs arrived on charter schools. They brought this acculturation.

[00:27:55] They brought these views with them. They were inclined to function as therapists and proselytizers more than as teachers. What moved them as a project was to dismantle racism. Not really to educate and the results were predictable and tragic student discipline unraveled because teachers were deeply concerned about, quote, unquote, policing black and brown bodies and the focus on academics was lost because achievement and particularly achievement gaps, they’ve been told.

[00:28:35] We’re a racist conception. So instead of throwing themselves into how can I get every one of the 28 kids in my room in a place where they’re equipped with the real tools of power, the ability to analyze the ability to write and argue. With conviction and skill. That’s not what moved them. And so for these reasons, we have seen a really precipitous drop in achievement in many of these schools.

[00:29:11] Now, they’re important exceptions. If we look at places like the brook charter schools. In Boston or Success Academy in New York City, their leaders said, Nope, we’re not doing that. We’re sticking to our academic mission. We believe in it. We make no apologies for it. And their results have have held strong.

[00:29:35] So that’s the story that I tell in the book. It’s obviously a controversial one, but I hope that people are willing to wrestle with it.

[00:29:44] Alisha Searcy: Definitely. I wish we had. So much more time to unpack many of these things, and I’m looking forward to reading the book so that I can hear more or learn more about this perspective.

[00:29:55] So, my last question before I ask you to read an excerpt from the book is in the last decade is really a. toward the forced critique of how K 12 education reform has strayed from the successful recipe of using high quality academic content to deliver equality of opportunities you’ve been talking about.

[00:30:14] So given your experience, research, and writings, what should state policymakers, schools, and teachers, and parents alike be doing to remedy the academic decline And in equities, as you define within the American education

[00:30:30] Steven Wilson: system, well, I think that the Alisha, the main thing that I, that I call for on the substantive level is a recommitment to a liberal education.

[00:30:41] So, a knowledge, rich experience for students that cultivates the great capacities. Of thinking of critical reasoning of exposure to diverse ideas. This is the education that has long been afforded the privilege. The privilege, but we have denied it. It’s just students from poverty for a century. It’s time to stop and to say every child deserves the education that has been afforded the affluent and one component of that is a knowledge rich education.

[00:31:20] So we made a great mistake with the common core. We thought that we could align the challenge. Of defining what students should learn and know through the grades, which was controversial. It was a politically challenging problem to come to agreement. And instead, we focused on skills like the skill of finding the main idea.

[00:31:43] This is fundamentally mistaken. You can’t reason. You can’t think critically. You can’t find the main idea. Indeed, you can’t understand a text without precursor knowledge. So there is no such thing as a reading comprehension skill. What there is. Is the accumulation, the accretion of knowledge by which we all make sense of a complex text.

[00:32:09] So we’ve got to go back to knowledge building from the earliest phrase and we have to embrace knowledge as the tool of power and influence. And we also have to, I think. I like the flame of curiosity. Curiosity is that great untapped engine of student achievement, and we have to make schools places that venerate curiosity and learning.

[00:32:35] And then on the policy side, I think, and I argue in the book, That we need to redouble our commitment to urban schooling and not fall prey to the fadism of education where we turn away to something else. No, urban schools is our great success of our time, urban charters, and we need to return to it. And redouble our commitment to it.

[00:33:00] Thank you. Let’s hear an excerpt from the book. Oh, gladly. I will, I think, read a passage really from the end of the book. It’s called the new firebrands. I am a school reform warrior, proclaimed Eva Moskowitz, Success Academy’s leader, at a 2016 gathering of her network staff. Where is the leadership on education, she asked.

[00:33:28] If there were more leadership, we wouldn’t have hundreds of thousands of kids in New York City alone. stuck in failing schools. We are the leadership. If we don’t do it, it’s not going to get done. Moskowitz, who by 2023 operated 53 high performing schools in the city, speaks bluntly about the imperative for better schools.

[00:33:51] She’s not looking to be liked. She’s trying to get things done. Urban charters will be brought to scale. When their advocates rejoin the fight, the decisive early campaigns on which the sector was built are now distant memory. We have charter laws in 45 states and the district of Columbia today, because decades ago, education reformers went to battle for them.

[00:34:19] Their opponents, the education interests, were formidable. In blue states, entrenched interests, the teachers union, principals union, superintendents associations, municipal associations, dominated state houses. Families stuck in failed schools had no choice. But while the opponents of charters had the raw power, charters advocates could make the moral case.

[00:34:44] For the new schools, the merits were on their side. They spoke bluntly of the failure of big city school systems, their stewardship of intergenerational poverty, their toll on human lives. They said they were fighting for the children. They could be brash and self righteous. They could alienate. But they prevailed.

[00:35:06] But then about 15 years ago, the fight went out of the sector. The firebrands who willed it into existence dispersed. Charter networks, advocacy organizations, and local school support groups changed hands. And their new leaders knew little of the sector’s origins. Rather than speaking from the head and the heart, they hired communication firms to draft their message.

[00:35:32] Bloodless. Anodyne. The consultants have little understanding of the sector or zeal for its mission. They wrongly saw their role as protecting their clients from criticism. At considerable expense, they offered Pablum, quote, school’s right for every child, unquote, and insisted that all their client statements steer clear of any criticism of districts.

[00:35:57] Yet the very raison d’etre of charters is to offer an alternative to district schools and escape hatch for families. If reformers choose to be silent about the need for charters, who will be moved to join their righteous cause? It was naive to think that making nice would soften the implacable resistant.

[00:36:17] of establishment interests. Then, when the online mob came, charter leaders were pressed to acknowledge that their work had not been, after all, to advance racial justice, but rather to sustain white supremacy. In building the organizations, all these leaders had made mistakes, changed course, and came inevitably to nurse certain regrets.

[00:36:44] Under fierce criticism, some publicly wrestled with their failings. Others bristled at the accusations against them, their contrition performative. Outwardly, they castigated their school’s practices. Inside, they cede. Now a new generation of firebrands can step forward to lead the sector into the next chapter.

[00:37:07] The new generation will decline to participate in a leadership culture where in group standing And often material benefit comes from decrying social ills while declining to remedy them status must be fueled, not by grievance, but by outcomes one for children, they will bring the quote, furious energy and famous impatience unquote, for which we remember Linda Brown, they will get to work and they will be formidable.

[00:37:39] Let others scroll through online petitions, clicking and clocking. The new firemen will be out building new institutions, the schools of tomorrow. Their goal will not be to conscript their students like child warriors into ideological wars, but to educate. Their commitment will be to the new ethics of care, their passion for great teaching.

[00:38:04] Alisha Searcy: Wow. You know, you said a couple of times that some of this may be controversial and I would agree, but I would also agree that these are necessary conversations that we need to have. I’m a former charter network leader, former policy makers. I feel like I’ve sat in a number of these seats. Stephen, the Research that you’ve done and the commentary that you are making today, I think, are really important.

[00:38:30] And those of us in the movement who do this work have to go back to exactly what you said, which is having this commitment that all kids need to have access to a high quality education, right? This belief that they all can learn at high levels. And so thank you for being with us and for this book. And I look forward to continuing to have this conversation.

[00:38:52] It’s so necessary.

[00:38:54] Steven Wilson: And Alisha, thank you for that. And let me just say, look, I, I think we’ve been too fearful to have this discussion and I expect that there’ll be many that strongly disagree. And I think that’s precisely right. I simply want to have the debate, the engagement and and I think you’ve offered that today.

[00:39:14] And I’m, I’m really very grateful for that. Absolutely. Happy to have you. Thank you so much.

[00:39:21] Albert Cheng: Alisha, I think we just ended that interview the right way. I mean, you know, Steven was talking about, and you were as well, talking about continuing this conversation. I think there’s a lot of hard things to talk about and think through and discuss and lots of controversy. We’re not going to see eye to eye, but I do want to really thank Steven for this work.

[00:39:49] I think he’s trying to make that conversation possible.

[00:39:52] Alisha Searcy: Yes, and he challenged my thinking in a lot of ways. So I’m looking forward to reading the book and as you said, continuing the conversation is so important. Yeah,

[00:40:02] Albert Cheng: well, let’s keep doing that and we’ll find the courage to do that and have these hard conversations.

[00:40:07] So before we close out tweet of the week. This one comes from Education Next, and we’re kind of still in the wake of the release of the NAEP 2024 test scores. And so this one’s an article from Education Next. I’ll just share that for our listeners to look at some more commentary about that. And I think this tweet, uh, well, look, it says one pattern evident in NAEP 2024.

[00:40:27] Also seen in 2022. Is that the lowest performing students are falling further behind. And, you know, Alisha, you and I, I mean, we’ve talked about the widening gap here, and so that’s something to really pay attention to and really dig into there’s a lot of work to be done, but, you know, hopefully we can multiply, you know, some of those pockets of excellence that we’ve been talking about throughout the show.

[00:40:48] Exactly. Well, hey, as usual, pleasure to co host with you. Looking forward to seeing you next week, Alisha. That’s right. Always good to be with you. See you next week. Yeah. And actually I shouldn’t have said next week because I do want to plug a special episode. We’re going to have Sir Jonathan Bates for an episode going to be released on Friday, Valentine’s Day.

[00:41:08] Yes. He’s a Shakespeare expert and he’s going to come talk to us about Well, I mean, it’s Valentine’s day. So what Romeo and Juliet, I think that’s the only, I mean, I guess there’s tons of other plays with love stories in there, but Romeo and Juliet. Yeah. Well join us for that. And also next week for our regular episode, we’re going to have Margaret Washington, who’s an expert on Sojourner Truth.

[00:41:30] Hope you all join us then. Yes.

[00:41:32] Alisha Searcy: Happy Valentine’s day.

[00:41:35] Albert Cheng: Hey, it’s Albert Cheng here. And I just want to thank you for listening to the learning curve podcast. If you’d like to support the podcast further, we invite you to donate to the Pioneer Institute at pioneerinstitute.org/donations.