#961: How “No Excuses” charter schools went off the rails, with Steven Wilson

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Steven Wilson, senior fellow at the Pioneer Institute, joins Mike to discuss his new book The Lost Decade: Returning to the Fight for Better Schools in America, which argues that the push for so-called Antiracist education derailed reform and harmed marginalized students. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber examines a study on how educators divide their attention during virtual tutoring—and how achievement, gender, race, and English learner status influence those interactions.

Recommended content: 

• Steven Wilson, “The Lost Decade: Returning to the Fight for Better Schools in America,” Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research, 2024.
• Wilson, Steven F. “The Promise of Intellectual Joy,” June 4, 2019. 
• Robert Pondiscio, “After a “lost decade,” let’s restore high expectations for students,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (December 12, 2024).
• Michael J. Petrilli, “11 thoughts about the massive layoffs at the U.S. Department of Education,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (March 11, 2025).
• Frederick M. Hess, “Defunding the teacher trainers,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (March 6, 2025).
• Qingyang Zhang, Rose E. Wang, Ana T. Ribeiro, Dorottya Demszky, and Susanna Loe, Educator Attention: How computational tools can systematically identify the distribution of a key resource for students, Annenberg Institute (March 2025)

Feedback Welcome: Have ideas for improving our podcast? Send them to Stephanie Distler at [email protected].