WonkyFolk Vol 27 — Navigating “The Lost Decade” With Steven Wilson at the National Alliance Conference in Orlando

Good day, CharterFolk.

I hope you all had a great 4th. Andy and I are happy to share our latest WonkyFolk discussion, which we recorded with Steven Wilson at the National Alliance’s conference last week in Orlando.

Steven is the author of “The Lost Decade,” which is a book that has drawn a lot of attention among CharterFolk and other education reformers this year.

Here is a link to the podcast and a transcript of the conversation.

You can also access the conversation here on YouTube.

We’re also available on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you access your favorite podcasts. An archive of all past recordings is available on our website here.

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We covered a lot of ground during our hour together, diving into many themes that Steven explored in his book including:

  • Decline and Drift of the Charter School Movement: The central focus of The Lost Decade — a critique of how the charter sector lost its founding clarity and commitment to academic excellence and instructional rigor.
  • Academic Excellence vs. Social Justice Shift: The movement away from instruction-centered schooling toward an elite-driven social justice discourse that often misaligns with what families actually want for their children.
  • Accountability and Testing: The erosion of standards-based reform and test-based accountability, leaving schools — including many charters — without clear markers of performance or urgency to improve.
  • The Rise of Ideological Orthodoxy in Schools: The swift adoption of ideological frameworks from Kendi, DiAngelo, and Okun, often without debate or reading, leading to conformity and internal policing within organizations.
  • What Parents Want vs. What Reformers Push: A growing disconnect between low-income families’ desire for safe, rigorous, college-prep schools and the education elite’s push for therapeutic, non-instructional approaches.
  • The Reality of Structural Racism and Our Misunderstanding About How Best to Address It: Discussion of how charter school advocacy went silent on its critique of the traditional public school system — the very system that entrenched racial and socioeconomic inequities. In doing so, the movement lost sight of the racial equity early charter leaders pursued not only through academic rigor and high expectations, but also through advocacy efforts that aimed to push the broader system to purge itself of its injustices.
  • Districts vs. Charter Schools: Reformable or Not? A blunt argument that traditional school districts are structurally incapable of sustained reform, while high-performing charters once showed what was possible at scale.
  • Loss of Institutional Knowledge and Reform Memory: A fear that the playbook of how to run excellent, high-impact charter schools is being forgotten — even though many of its key practices were learned and shared just a decade ago.
  • Rebuilding: What a Path Forward Looks Like: Signs of hope include: veteran talent re-engaging; strong schools that never abandoned their mission; funders beginning to ask harder questions again; and the possibility that honest, public conversation can once again become acceptable in the sector.

Here are links to books and articles referenced in the discussion:

Books

  1. How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
  2. White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
  3. Woke Racism by John McWhorter
  4. Shut Up and Let the Lady Teach by Emily Sachar
  5. The Rhetoric of Reaction by Albert O. Hirschman

Articles / Reports / Papers

  1. Charter Schools and the Road to College Readiness – Brookings Institution
  2. The Opportunity Myth – TNTP
  3. A Nation at Risk (1983) – U.S. Department of Education
  4. Joint Civil Rights Statement on Testing and Accountability (2015) – Leadership Conference Education Fund

Thanks again to Steven for joining us.

I hope you will find the discussion as thought-provoking as I did.