America’s schools don’t have a technology problem. They have a leadership problem.
We’ve seen how quickly tech pushes without strategy can backfire. Over the last decade, well-intentioned device rollouts and platforms couldn’t overcome the absence of coherent plans, routines and training. Schools weren’t prepared. Remote teaching, unstable Internet, inadequate workspaces and student disengagement cascaded to undercut learning quality. Data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) confirms the cost: historic declines in student performance that persist today.
The lesson wasn’t to go slower on tech. It was to lead with vision, strategy and execution, or tech will expose your gaps. Technology can amplify great teaching, but it cannot replace strategy, coherence or leadership.
Right now, the AI conversation in K-12 is noisy, fragmented and driven by fear. Headlines fixate on downsides, trust in public education is sliding, and leaders are caught between hype cycles and reactionary bans.
Yet here we are again, making the same mistake with AI. Under pressure to “do something” about AI, districts are purchasing products not because they solve a specific problem, but because AI is the headline feature. They’re running pilots framed as innovation, measuring whether tools get used rather than whether students learn more. Meanwhile, deeply disturbing reports about AI chatbots encouraging students to harm themselves and others keep surfacing, and the response has been to pilot more products rather than pause and ask what we’re actually trying to accomplish.
This isn’t innovation. It’s procurement theater.
THE REAL PROBLEM: WE WON’T CHANGE OURSELVES
At a recent conference on high-dosage tutoring, a district leader sought solutions for embedding tutoring into the instructional day. The room was full of superintendents tackling the same problem: how to fit this proven intervention into their master schedules.
They were solving the wrong problem. What needed redesigning was the organization’s fundamental structure.
AI faces the same potential for failure if we don’t target the leadership first. It requires real innovation, meaning strategically abandoning the good to make room for the great.
Here’s what the AI conversation is missing: AI is not a tool. It’s a transformational technology that demands systems-level thinking.
Most conversations at both the district and state level treat it like a product category. “We bought an AI-enhanced curriculum.” “We’re piloting AI in math class.” “We created an AI leadership position.”
None of that is strategy. It’s all tactics without vision.
Real implementation requires four things in order: community engagement, vision, strategy and execution.
Community engagement comes first, before any vision is set. This isn’t about getting buy-in for decisions leaders have already made. It’s about inviting students, families, teachers and community members to convey the problems worth solving in the first place.
That means engaging directly with your community on questions like: What gaps exist in teaching and learning? What barriers do families face? What do students need to thrive?
In Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS), Superintendent Crystal Hill didn’t begin with a plan to implement AI. She began by listening. The district surveyed more than 10,000 teachers, parents and students to understand what they hoped AI might bring to classrooms and what they feared. What emerged wasn’t a technology plan, but a community-identified set of priorities around safety, privacy and instructional needs.
Those priorities are now driving how the district creates policies and allocates resources. Critically, CMS has built forums for ongoing dialogue as AI implementation unfolds, ensuring the community stays engaged in shaping the work and addressing new ethical considerations as they emerge.
This is fundamentally different from the typical approach where leaders decide what AI will do and then seek community “input” or “buy-in.” Instead, the community helps leaders see the actual problems. When AI strategy emerges from these community-identified problems, it’s anchoring real needs rather than vendor promises or peer trends.
Vision means clarity and alignment from the boardroom to the classroom about what AI means for your organization and how it accelerates your mission; not as an add-on, but as an integrated part of how you operate.
For CMS, that community insight became the foundation of its AI vision. The district’s vision isn’t about adopting tools — it’s about advancing student learning while safeguarding the community’s priorities of safety and privacy.
Everyone, from state board members to classroom teachers, should be able to see how every AI application fits into a larger picture of where the organization is going.
Strategy turns vision into motion. It aligns priorities, timelines and resources so every initiative reinforces the others. Strategy incorporates the concept of “strategy braiding”: taking intentional, complementary strategies and weaving them together so the organization operates as one.
Effective AI integration requires hands-on direction. State- and district-level leaders need personal experiences with AI to understand its power and limitations practically, not theoretically. States can accelerate this by creating regional collaboratives to share learnings and resources.
Execution means having clearly defined systems and processes that allow the organization to execute with fidelity. That includes strong oversight, clear ownership, capacity-building, and measurable outcomes. It means strategic abandonment of old practices and the discipline to transition innovation into “this is just how we do business now.”
A fundamental question sits at the center of AI’s future in education: who will lead this transformation?
Will it be driven by profits over pedagogy? Shaped by those who see technology as an end rather than a means? Will we allow AI to be deployed without educators’ values and priorities considered?
Or will education leaders step up and drive this movement, not just in schools, but for society?
We’re running out of time, but the choice is binary: Lead or be led. Transform or be disrupted. Shape the future of AI in education or watch others shape it for us.
THIS IS A LEADERSHIP MOMENT
The organizations that will succeed with AI aren’t the ones with the biggest tech budgets or the most products purchased. They’re the ones with leaders who understand that this is fundamentally about transforming organizations, embracing systems thinking, and having the courage to choose vision over vendors. They understand this isn’t about technology at all. It’s about leadership.
Julia Rafal-Baer is the co-founder and CEO of ILO Group, a women-owned education and policy strategy firm, and the founder of Women Leading Ed, a national nonprofit network for women in education leadership. She is also a member of the National Assessment Governing Board.
Dr. Scott Muri served as a superintendent for 10 years at two large Texas school districts (Spring Branch ISD and Ector County ISD) and is now the CEO of innovations in leadership and superintendent in residence at the policy firm ILO Group.
