About
Neither an enthusiast nor a skeptic. An implementer.
A learning community focused on leveraging AI to support human learning.
Who writes this
AI in Schools is written by Stephen Best — implementation scientist and founder of Systems for Innovative Schools, with 35+ years spanning the classroom, research at the University of Michigan, and policy work at the Michigan Department of Education. The through-line of all of it: good ideas fail in schools when the systems around them can't carry the change. AI is the newest and largest test of that principle.
The stance here is deliberate. The enthusiasts underestimate the implementation problem; the skeptics underestimate the students, who are already living in an AI-saturated world. This site takes both jobs seriously: govern and use the tools well now, and do the deeper redesign work with evidence and patience rather than hype and panic.
One focused room in a larger house
This site is the AI room. The systems work (how districts make any improvement stick), the innovation work, the policy work — and the ways we might work together, from a first conversation to a full engagement — live at the hub:Systems for Innovative Schools.
Every engagement starts the same way — small, concrete, and useful to you whether or not we ever work together: you send a few sentences about where your district is stuck, we schedule a 30-minute working call, and you receive resources matched to your situation.