Learning on the Job: When Business Takes on Public Schools 

Harvard University Press, 2006

Virginia and Warren Stone prize for an outstanding book on education and society 

Entrepreneurial creativity, private investment, and competition have been among America's great strengths. Can they be harnessed to improve troubled public schools? Or is private management of public schools at best a gimmick, and at worst an undemocratic sellout? With honesty and fairness on an ideologically charged topic, Steven describes the follies and wisdom, overreaching and real accomplishment, of the first education entrepreneurs. 

Acknowledging that they had much to learn about the real-world challenges of running schools, he passionately defends the promise of private involvement in public schooling. 

“Sage yet passionate, battle-scarred but optimistic, Steven Wilson has produced a magisterial appraisal of America’s early experience with the privatizing, out-sourcing, and reinventing of public education. This illuminating book offers a much-needed and timely set of lessons, challenges, and opportunities.”

—Chester E. Finn, president emeritus of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and former assistant secretary, U. S. Department of Education

Reinventing the Schools: A Radical Plan for Boston

Pioneer Institute for Public Policy, 1992 

In this in-depth and provocative analysis of a large urban school district, Steven proposed new “entrepreneurial schools” founded by teachers and social entrepreneurs outside the district that would admit students by lottery, be funded in proportion to the number of students they enroll, and be accountable for meeting achievement outcomes.  

Steven offered a detailed blueprint for charter schools in Massachusetts, for which he and William S. Edgerly wrote the original legislation. Today, Boston counts some of the highest-performing charter schools in the country. 

“At long last an unsparingly honest examination of Boston’s public schools and a credible and coherent plan of action. Wilson’s model is able to rekindle legitimate hopes in parents and citizens alike that something can be done about the abysmal schooling of the nation’s children, and that of the poor and minorities in particular. His informed and compassionate discussion of special and bilingual education provides us with clues about how to resolve the gridlock peculiar to these broad attempts to meet the needs of these particular populations. Rarely in a long career revolving around educational issues have I encountered a better informed and more tightly argued book.”

—Brigitte Berger, professor of sociology, Boston University

Governance Challenges to Innovators Outside the System

Chapter in Education Governance for the 21st Century, Paul Manna and Patrick McGuinn, editors, Brookings Institution Press, 2013

Steven examines innovators in three sectors: charter schools, non-traditional teacher preparation and certification, and digital learning. Although their initiatives have gained momentum in recent years, they still struggle amid prevailing education practices that long-standing governance arrangements help to maintain. Yet as the word has spread of these disruptive innovations and the educational opportunities they create, public support for the powerful alliance of interest groups that maintain the governance status quo is beginning to erode, a trend that Steven predicts will continue.

 "A searing indictment of our fragmented and incoherent education governance system inherited from the 19th century. It illuminates the negative consequences of no one in charge. The book includes a stimulating array of promising alternatives for the contemporary school governance context."

―Michael W. Kirst, Professor Emeritus of Education and Business Administration, Stanford University, and President of the California State Board of Education

The Efficient Use of Teachers

Chapter in Stretching the School Dollar: How Schools and Districts Can Save Money While Serving Students Best, Frederick M. Hess and Eric Osberg, editors, Harvard Education Press, 2010

Teachers are by far the largest cost for schools. Steven explores how teachers could be utilized more strategically and cost-effectively. Taking one district as a case in point, Steven makes the case that sensible rethinking could shave district costs by perhaps 15 percent—while paying teachers more—and putting the district in a stronger position to support high-quality teaching and learning.

“Stretching the School Dollar arrives a time when it is urgently needed. It is ideal for school district and state leaders who are interested in—even desperate to know—how our school systems can do more with less. It offers practical recommendations for cutting costs in ways that avoid damage to school programming as well as more dramatic and innovative ways to re-engineer how we ‘do school’. If you are ready to meet your fiscal commitments while providing a world-class education to your students, this is the book for you.”

—Deborah A. Gist, Rhode Island Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education

Success at Scale in Charter Schooling

American Enterprise Institute Education Outlook Series, No. 3, March 2009

KIPP KEY Academy in Washington, D.C. North Star Academy in Newark. Roxbury Prep in Boston. Amistad Academy in New Haven. These, and perhaps two hundred other high-performing schools nationwide, are the bright lights of the charter school movement. Despite social and economic disadvantages, their students not only trounce their district peers on state tests but also surpass students from surrounding affluent suburban districts. Among these “gap-closing” schools, one broad approach, frequently called “no excuses” schooling, appears to dominate. The Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) network of schools is the exemplar, but this approach is proliferating in other networks.

But to narrow America’s shameful achievement gaps, we would need thousands more such schools. Is the “no excuses” approach sustainable, and can it be widely reproduced?