Artificial Intelligence in Schools: A Guide for Teachers, Administrators, and Technology Leaders 
by Varun Arora, Routledge, New York, N.Y., 2022, 264 pp., $160 hardcover, $34.95 softcover 

As educators, we need to explore the potential of artificial intelligence as it applies to our schools. Artificial Intelligence in Schools: A Guide for Teachers, Administrators, and Technology Leaders by Varun Arora, CEO of OpenCurriculum, begins to show us the way. I won’t sugarcoat it. This book was not an easy read, nor does it purport to be. 

The mathematical foundation of the book is beyond most non-math-oriented teachers and needs the assistance of your district technology department to unpack. That said, I was intrigued by the book and I think you will be too.

If you are looking for a book to explain how to apply AI applications to your district today, this is not your best choice. However, if you are interested in AI’s potential going forward over the next several years, even decades, Arora’s book will provide you with much to ponder including some advantages and disadvantages of AI in education.

Major AI applications in our classrooms have not yet taken hold. In fact, many AI ideas are presently in the infancy stage. However, the fears teachers attach to AI and its influence on classroom instruction are very real. This book will help to allay those fears by demonstrating that the timeline for AI applications spans several decades. 

However, not all AI applications are to be found in the future. The author shares several exciting, almost palpable AI applications that are available to us today. For example, Arora writes, “Microsoft’s Seeing AI is an app that allows people with visual impairments to gain information about objects and spaces around them. It allows a visually impaired person to point the mobile phone camera at the scenery or a document or sign board in front of them and have it read back to them as speech.” This is a gamechanger for visually impaired students and is only one of many such AI applications shared in this book.

Think of the possibilities we can explore in a rendering of a virtual reality classroom. Preservice teachers could practice teaching methodology, behavior management, curriculum development, increasing student engagement and teaching disabled students from a college classroom setting under the direction of experts. Think of the potential of providing this technology to some of our best and brightest colleagues in the field. These examples are possible through AI applications and this book shines a light on how we can begin to move in this direction.

Reviewed by John W. Hannum, retired member, Newton, N.J.

Compassionate Coaching: How to Help Educators Navigate Barriers to Professional Growth 
by Kathy Perret and Kenny McKee, ASCD, Alexandria, Va., 2021, 136 pp. with index, $26.95 softcover 

During the past two years amid a global pandemic, the education profession has been put under a microscope and been highly scrutinized. This frequently unsupportive attitude towards the profession has found educators under a great deal of pressure for continued student growth during a time of circumstances beyond their control. 

The authors of Compassionate Coaching, Kathy Perret and Kenny McKee, have worked as teachers and instructional coaches for a combined total of over 50 years. Perret owns a consulting firm and presents at local and national conferences, while McKee is an instructor at East Carolina University. They are well aware of the need for moral support and instructional guidance for those who work in the classroom. 

In their book, the authors discuss some of the reasons teachers may feel ineffective and ways to help move beyond these temporary setbacks. This book comes at a crucial time when more teachers are leaving the profession than entering. The ideas in Compassionate Coaching should be viewed as strategies to try to save good teachers and strengthen the profession. 

Some states have a required mentoring process for newly certificated teachers, which helps to acclimate one to the profession; however, that formal relationship, if it exists, is often for a short period of time. Compassionate coaching is a way to get an educator “back on track” to feeling productive and being successful at any time during one’s career. 

The authors address teacher concerns using a brief situation as an introduction to each area of focus. Perret and McKee examine the lack of confidence, failure, overload, disruptions isolation and school culture challenges emphasize the coaching experiences as one to “support teachers to confidently approach challenges.” The authors discuss ways to refocus individual expectations and guide struggling professionals to prioritize tasks and goals. 

Compassionate Coaching is full of coaching strategies to support all teachers with ways to improve their individual skills and the growth of each student. It is urgent that as educators, we support our colleagues and help them through the difficult times. This book is a good resource for both formal and informal coaching opportunities. The authors’ sample coaching menu can be used to introduce the concept of peer coaching. 

Principals and supervisors should always be cognizant of those who are skilled in specific areas so as to assist those who may be struggling by building co-teaching pairs and creating a professional culture of support.

Compassionate Coaching can be used throughout one’s career to give back to the profession of teaching by establishing a community of support and guidance for all. 

Reviewed by Edythe B. Austermuhl, superintendent, Berlin Township School District, West Berlin, N.J.

Breakthrough Leadership: Six Principles Guiding Schools Where Inequity Is Not An Option
by Alan M. Blankstein and Marcus J. Newsome, Corwin, Thousand Oaks, Calif., 2021, 211 pp. with index, $34.95 softcover

A breakthrough is a discovery of a fundamental truth that challenges accepted beliefs. As defined by Breakthrough Leadership authors Alan Blankstein and Marcus Newsome, “breakthrough leadership” for school administrators translates that discovery into actions to address this new truth through adaptive leadership that redirects and alters a system’s practices and programs to improve student success.

Blankstein is an author, educator and former president of the Hope Foundation. Newsome is a former superintendent, college professor and, currently, an education consultant. 

The authors see the coronavirus pandemic as a breakthrough experience, exposing the full degree of social, racial and cultural inequities embedded in the fabric of American education. Because the pandemic has forced restrictions to in-school attendance and required the pervasive use of distance learning, it has revealed the full extent that poverty, disabilities and social inequities affect learning. Consequently, adaptive leadership is needed to address this new understanding of these educational fault lines.

Breakthrough Leadership asserts that building “relational trust” in school leaders is essential to exercising adaptive leadership. This trust is built on the pillars of respect, competence, a regard for others and integrity.

Relational trust gives system leaders the platform to apply six “proven” principles to developing high performing and equitable schools; namely a clearly defined vision, mission, value set and goals, a comprehensive system for prevention and intervention, collaborative teaming, data-based decision making, community engagement and sustainable leadership.

The authors offer numerous case studies and scenarios describing how each of these principles can be achieved. Examples of successful applications of each as well as the possible pitfalls to effective change are provided, offering the reader practical and realistic views of adaptive leadership. 

A 50-page supplement to Breakthrough Leadership provides further examples and guidance. Organized by specific challenges to implementation, the supplement raises essential questions to provoke discussion and solutions using the guiding principles recommended by the authors. Through the case studies in the book and the exercises in the supplement, realistic approaches translate theory into practice. 

Breakthrough Leadership is a valuable resource for all educational leaders facing systemic challenges that expose or exacerbate instructional inequities. "Relational trust" and the six applicable principles offer a practical guide to a more effective organization. 

Reviewed by J. Michael Wilhelm, consultant, Maine Department of Education, Augusta, Maine

Leading PLCs at Work Districtwide: From Boardroom to Classroom
by Robert Eaker, Mike Hagadone, Janel Keating and Meagan Rhoades, Solution Tree Press, Bloomington, Ind., 2021, 151 pp. with index, $31.95 softcover

Leading PLCs at Work Districtwide is the latest book supporting Professional Learning Community implementation from Robert Eaker, professor emeritus at Middle Tennessee State University. The book provides specific implementation strategies at each level of the organization as illustrated by the success of the White River School District in Buckley, Wash. Eaker’s co-authors are three current and former White River administrators, who share details of their experience.

The book includes an extensive number of resources, ranging from basic PLC structures to information related to agenda expectations, unit planning templates, data protocols, standards documents, Multi-Tiered System of Support, SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-based) goals and group norms. This book differs from other books about PLCs, such as the Learning by Doing Handbook, which addresses the nuts and bolts of PLCs with some specific implementation strategies, or Whatever It Takes, which focuses on strategies for interventions and supporting the individual needs of all learners, in its scope.

Whereas those books are more narrowly focused, Leading PLCs at Work Districtwide addresses systematic nature of PLCs in high-functioning districts. It delves into the role of each leadership team (board-district, district-building and building-teacher) and the relationship between and among each team. The book includes examples of strategies that can be considered to align the work of each team and visuals leaders can use to support their professional learning.

Unique to this book is an emphasis on the often-overlooked role of school boards. For boards to understand and support the work and stay focused on the right work, they need to understand the basic tenets of PLCs and their role in supporting the work — namely, providing direction and clarity, modeling collaboration principles for the rest of the district, and ensuring fidelity to a districtwide planning process.

At first glance, one might assume Leading PLCs at Work Districtwide is merely a recycled version of familiar concepts. By including the role of the board, taking a systems approach and paying meticulous attention to detail, it avoids this criticism.

Reviewed by David Moyer, superintendent, Arlington Central School District, LaGrangeville, N.Y.

“When I became a superintendent 18 years ago, it felt like I was wearing a suit that didn’t quite fit. I knew there was a traditional way to be a superintendent, but the language we used could get in the way of things I wanted to do and relationships I wanted to build. Since then, I’ve studied how that legacy language belies the transformative work we try to accomplish in our schools. This book examines common words and phrases in a leader’s lexicon and suggests alternatives more aligned with our goals. I wanted to advance the conversation around building a language of leadership that differentiates between transactional and transformational work.”

Quintin Shepherd, superintendent, Victoria Independent School District, Victoria, Texas, and AASA member since 2006, on co-authoring The Secret to Transformational Leadership (Compassionate Leadership LLC, 2022)