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We Need to Rethink How Our Schools Work. And the Resulting Change Needs to Be a “Transformation.”

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We are at a point where we need to rethink the basics of how our K-12 schools work. And based on this rethinking, we need to transform the learning experience we provide for our kids. The somewhat-unnoticed 2025 book School Rethink 2.0: Putting Reinvention into Practice provides some great thoughts on the potential pieces of the challenging transformation puzzle.

In our schools, achievement is down, graduation rates are down, attendance is down, and anxiety and other forms of mental illness are up. And the students who continue to fare the worst are those who need our help the most, those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Our schools have been using the same basic model for over 100 years. But this model no longer works as well, due to changes in our society and in our kids themselves.

Except as we face our increasingly challenging future, we now need our schools to work even better than they ever have.

One approach to bring about the needed improvement would be to try to fine-tune the existing system. But a more courageous approach would be what in the private sector is called “transformation.”

In a transformational approach, we would develop a vision of a much-improved future. Then, we would work in a systematic way to make that vision happen.

And we can nod our heads and agree that such a transformation is what we need. Except, it simply isn’t happening yet, at least not very quickly.

So what is holding us back from starting on the transformation, at the speed and scale that would make a difference?

One obstacle is the failure to recognize the extent of the problems we face. And a related obstacle is the belief that we can address our challenges with incremental improvement—little fixes here and there—rather than an overall transformation.

But maybe the biggest thing holding us back is the great difficulty in K-12 districts and schools of bringing about change that is truly transformative. The system is complex, the scope is huge, and we don’t have staff dedicated to the effort needed to make this change happen.

So, how can we transcend these obstacles?

A start would be for school leaders at every level, especially districts and individual schools, to convene their people and gain a consensus that what is needed is nothing less than transformation. The next step would be to develop a preliminary vision of what the transformed system will look like.

Except this leaves the tremendous challenge of traveling from the entrenched present to the transformed future. How do we get from here to there?

A start is to accept that it’s OK to give ourselves some time, and to not feel compelled to try to put our completely transformed world in place for the start of school in September. We first need to identify the components of our vision of transformation. Then, we can prioritize the order in which we want to work to implement these components over time.

But what are the common components of transformation that we should consider?

A great asset here is the 2025 book School Rethink 2.0: Putting Reinvention into Practice. Somehow this book flew under the radar when it came out. For example, it has exactly one rating on Amazon.

The book breaks school transformation into several themes. It then provides an excellent discussion of each of these themes. For each discussion it brings in one or more of the top experts on the issue. In this way, School Rethink 2.0 provides something of a panel discussion on what rethinking consists of and how we can make it happen.

The book and its contributors suggest several themes for rethinking.

  • Maybe the biggest benefit of rethinking can come from a shift to personalized learning. Larry Berger and Alexandra Walsh discuss how a personalized approach can be integrated into curriculum products through the inclusion of personalized learning software and other approaches.
  • Besides personalized learning software, a technology that would also support personalized learning would be AI-driven tutoring. Sal Khan, Kristen DiCerbo, and Rachel Borditsky of Khan Academy discuss their efforts to develop their Khanmigo tutoring product.
  • Scott Ellis discusses how a shift to mastery or standards-based learning can ensure students are successfully mastering the hundreds of skills involved in their learning experience.
  • Arthur VanderVeen discusses how we need forms of assessment that move beyond the historic annual test. This would enable us to provide students and teachers with constantly updated data on how the students are progressing
  • One form of personalization that is not new is Career and Technical Education (CTE). But Corey Mohn argues we need to take a next step to Profession-Based Learning (PBL), in which all students can work individually and in teams on projects drawn from the workplace.
  • Factors such as the increased emphasis on personalized learning will change the role of the teacher. Brent Maddin discusses how one change will be an increased use of teacher teams, in which the teacher members play different roles.
  • Maddin also discusses how the use of teacher teams opens new possibilities for the use of time and space at school. For more than a century, classes of 20 to 30 students or more have been scheduled into traditional-sized classrooms for fixed periods. But teacher teams are one of several breakthroughs that can create new options for how the students’ school days are structured and for the physical layout of the school.
  • Frederick “Rick” Hess, Michael B. Horn, and Juliet Squire serve as editors of the book. They provide guidance on the challenge of bringing about the transformation that the extensive rethinking calls for.

The journey from today to our transformed system will be challenging—but it will also be exciting. And it’s a journey we must undertake. Our kids deserve no less.

Tony Frontier Says We Must Use AI, and Use It with “Intention”

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Artificial intelligence, or “AI,” is not new. For years, our students have been using forms of what is called “narrow AI.” Maybe the best example of narrow AI is adaptive learning software, in which the technology provides personalized reading and math instruction and practice.

But generative AI products such as Google Gemini are now available. And the interest in the use of these products has exploded—especially among our students—and this school year may become the “AI moment” when this all comes together.

Except educators have tended to view the challenge of AI as figuring out how to keep students from not using it. So when students take on traditional assignments such as research papers, we tend to be concerned they will use AI to “cheat” on the assignment. And much of our energy involving AI has been devoted to blocking its use.

In his new book “AI with Intention: Principles and Action Steps for Teachers and School Leaders” Tony Frontier takes the opposite viewpoint. He urges educators to not only put AI to work in improving our students’ learning, but to do this “with intention”—to work hard to ensure that our use of AI is being effective in helping our kids learn in new and more powerful ways.

Yet to put AI to work in an effective way requires considerable change, and that is what “AI with Intention” is about. Frontier devotes the book to discussing how we can bring about the changes needed to help our students use AI more effectively.

He splits the book into two sections. The first half of the book is devoted to advice for school leaders on how to bring about the needed change. And the second half is devoted to advice for teachers.

How can school leaders provide leadership to effectively implement AI?

Frontier begins his advice for school leaders by suggesting that they “lead by learning.” He urges leaders to help all those in the organization understand the basics of how AI works and what it can do. For example, he advises leaders to help people avoid “anthropomorphizing” AI—to treat AI like it is a human, as in science fiction movies. He uses the example of the student telling the teacher that, “Google told me this.” No, AI is a tool that we use, not a person.

He then urges leaders to “take a transformational approach.” A key issue for leaders in implementing AI is recognizing the distinction between transactional and transformational change. An example of transactional change would be replacing an outdated textbook. And of course this kind of change is often needed.

But to get the greatest benefit from AI, Frontier encourages school leaders to work to bring about transformational change—to change how our students learn in a basic way. He says leaders must “Ask big, transformational questions—those that challenge long-held assumptions, invite new ways of thinking about the nature of the work at hand, and help others break free from the past.”

Although Frontier argues we must move past viewing AI as a way students might cheat, he calls on us to “emphasize integrity.” He recognizes that we must manage academic integrity, and he talks quite a bit about this.

And Frontier advises that we must put “fidelity before efficiency.” He cautions about using AI to achieve efficiency without “fidelity” to the larger goal of ensuring that our students have a rich learning experience.

How can teachers use AI to help our kids learn? How can we use AI with “intention?”

To begin his discussion of how teachers can use AI to improve how students learn, Tony encourages teachers to “stand in their shoes,” and view AI abilities as our students do.

He then calls on teachers to “know your purpose.” A very enlightening discussion is his contrast between the “culture of compliance,” in which our energy is directed to issues such as did our students submit their assignments, and the “culture of learning,” where the focus is on what might our students learn and whether this is happening.

He asks teachers to “prompt AI tools intentionally” and “use AI tools for intentional learning,” to ensure that AI tools are being used with intention and to help our students to become independent learners.

There’s more to do

 “AI with Intention” is a great contribution to understanding the role AI can play in our kids’ learning experience, how we can implement AI effectively, and how we can avoid some dangers of its use.

But there are things “AI with Intention” doesn’t do:

  • It doesn’t review specific AI tools.
  • It focuses on the use of generative AI tools such as Google Gemini and Microsoft Copilot, and it doesn’t open the door to even scarier tools such as AI tutors (e.g., Khanmigo).
  • Although it provides examples, these examples tend to relate to older kids.
  • It doesn’t provide a sample action plan for implementing AI.
  • And it doesn’t provide case studies on AI implementations in real districts and schools.

This is not a criticism of the book. “AI with Intention” provides a rich review of the issues involved in ensuring that AI is used “with intention.”

But there’s more to do. To begin, we need to consider how our districts and schools can structure their efforts to use AI and other methods to transform how learning happens with their kids. And we need to check out the actual experience of our fellow districts in how they are successfully or possibly not-so-successfully implementing AI.

And this is where you can help. Have you used AI “with intention” to help your students learn more effectively? If so, don’t be shy—this is the AI moment! This is the time to stand up and tell your story of success, to help all of us make the transformation in learning our kids need, as we enter the age of AI.