Trickle Down....Or Grass Roots

The January days seem truly gloomy...or maybe it's this sense of "limbo" as to how and where we are in bringing knowledge and new ways to the teachers and students we serve.
Teachers seem so overwhelmed. It's painful at times to ask teachers to spend the little planning/thinking time they have during the day to spend talking about techno-wizardry that may take time to learn that they simply don't have.
Just away from the classroom for a year and a half, I have a lot of sympathy for the teachers and am caught between this sympathy and my wish to bring a potent, strong impact on these schools with technologies that could refresh these typical urban school environments.
But do I PUSH in, or should these priorities (and hence schedules) be set from school administrators with vision of what's to come? In the midst of test preparations, expanding academic expectations, high-stakes assessment, and micromanaged teacher schedules, how to make room for a future in schools that are so dictated by the past? It seems like these issues will only be resolved by educational leadership that is more agile, more thoughtful, more curious, more secure, less dogmatic, less backward-leaning, less frightened of bold policy.
Can demand in the classrooms push reluctant, overwhelmed administrators to allow new processes to blossom within the walls of their beleaguered buildings? Will it rest on the student's enthusiasm to push the school's instructional path from it's traditional ways? Will teachers catch fire to this new element and use their influence to alter their student's future?
Or will it take a few Principals, Superintendents, State Education Officials to look ahead to see what opportunities must be made for those who need a new education.