In July 2026, more than 90 Student Senators representing all 50 states did something no group of students had done before: they wrote the nation’s first student-led artificial intelligence (AI) policy for K–12 schools.
Artificial Intelligence
The conversation around artificial intelligence (AI) has evolved quickly. So have the questions educators are asking. As AI and digital technologies reshape how young people learn and create, educators have an opportunity to revisit and reimagine what literacy looks like today.
Every smartphone, search engine, and AI model runs on a concept invented 1,200 years ago by a scholar working with pen, paper, and breakthrough logic. His name was Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi. In Latin, it became “Algoritmi.” His step-by-step method became the algorithm, the source code of the modern world.
As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes ubiquitous, teachers face the challenge and responsibility of preparing students for a world where they’ll be expected to use AI to deepen their thinking, expand their creativity, and solve harder problems.
On July 4, 2026—America’s 250th birthday—the Theodore Roosevelt (TR) Presidential Library opened in Medora, North Dakota, as a call to adventure in the Badlands. Visitors step into a museum where the participant is the hero—and leave inspired to live TR’s values of leadership, citizenship, and conservation.
Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping society, yet most K–12 teachers have had little preparation to teach how AI works or how it connects to foundational computer science. The Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) is launching a multistate initiative this summer to prepare thousands of K–12 educators to teach foundational computer science (CS) and artificial intelligence (AI) skills.
The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) has unveiled a 10-point Artificial Intelligence (AI) plan, seeking bans on all screen use for students below third grade and on student-facing AI tools in elementary education.
Generalist AI gives answers, removes friction, and does the thinking. That’s great for productivity—but when AI does the cognitive work, students don’t build the skill. AI Friction Labs offers a solution: Socratic dialogues, role-plays, and scenarios that resist easy resolution. Students do the thinking. The AI provides the resistance. The transcript becomes the assessment—a full record of how each student navigated difficulty.
The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) has published a working framework for English language arts (ELA) educators seeking to understand the appropriate role of artificial intelligence (AI) in the discipline—a pressing issue facing every school and student.
As artificial intelligence reshapes school, work, and life, uniquely human contributions have become essential. Skills for the Future is a joint initiative between ETS and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching to shift the focus in education from time-based learning to competency-based learning.