Agents of Change

In Agents of Change,Lucy West and Antonia Cameron remind us that expert, well-prepared teachers make all the difference in the lives of students, no matter their subject areas. Their carefully-crafted chapters contain thoughtful suggestions for administrators, staff developers, and coaches who are determined to help classroom teachers make long-lasting changes in their teaching. Throughout this ground-breaking book, Lucy and Toni help educators develop a coaching culture in their classrooms, staff rooms, and district offices. Such a culture no doubt leads to better schools for our children.

This is a state-of-the-art book on coaching skills by two of the most experienced and accomplished coaches in the country. But Agents of Change is far more than that. The book reflects the authors’ understanding of how, properly constructed and implemented, the position of instructional coach can be a potent lever for system-wide improvement of teaching and learning. Coaches can be change agents to the adult professional culture as well as resources to individual teachers. The authors lived this message in the 1990’s in District 2 in NYC. That district became the top performer in the whole city over that decade, in large part by implementing the model they describe. This is not just theory. Yes, readers focused on the texture of coaching excellence will find a treasury of subtle insights into planning, points of intervention, and communication skills. But this book is an important addition to the literature on systemic change and should not be missed by policymakers, school board members, and educational leaders at all levels.

West and Cameron achieve a homerun with this book. In a time of rapid change in education driven by more rigorous content standards that require new ways of teaching and learning, especially in mathematics, and higher standards for teacher performance, effective coaching is even more essential. Coaching, as West and Cameron portray it, is a powerful vehicle for the continuous development of teachers and elevating teaching.

Full of fresh ideas and thought-provoking strategies, Agents of Change is a wonderful reminder that Coaching is indeed an Art.   The book helps us see coaching as part of a larger system to improve education and guides us as we navigate the sticking points, and tricky situations when we enter the classroom, and guides us through the hard conversations we inevitably must face.  Ultimately, it is a book that honors teachers and teaching, and, at its core, understands that to improve education we must value a teacher’s constant desire to get smarter.

Agents of Change builds a forward-looking framework for 21^st century coaching consistent with schools of the future, replacing the factory-model schools of past and present.  The authors’ framework values learning on a par with performance, for both students and teachers. Most importantly, perhaps, the framework portrays the coach not as a luxury for schools and districts in times of plenty, but as a pivotal component of effective educational systems.  Further, the book is very practical and helpful in describing the framework.  As they lay out its components, the authors offer many clear strategies for coaches to follow, along with describing potential traps, those roles and behaviors coaches should not assume.

Agents of Change is a very valuable resource on the role of content-focused coaching in improving teacher and student learning. It provides a careful and sophisticated characterization of the role, strategies, moves, and dispositions of coaches while positioning their work in relation to other actors within the school system. It artfully incorporates a case study into three of the chapters and makes explicit the coach’s and teacher’s moves in the case. The combination of the case and its meta-analysis will help coaches and the people who support or hire them gain a deeper understanding of and appreciation for the complexities and nuances of coaching.