Speaking at the ninth annual Reagan Institute Summit on Education (RISE) in Washington, D.C., Jobs for the Future (JFF) President and CEO Maria Flynn called for integrating foundational artificial intelligence literacy into standard schooling, comparing its future necessity to foundational keyboarding classes.

Flynn's remarks follow a recent Gallup poll showing that while 51% of parents trust K-12 schools to prepare students for general technology, only 34% feel confident in schools' ability to teach effective AI use, and just 27% believe schools prepare learners for the current world of work. To bridge this divide, Flynn pointed to several institutional approaches already underway, including Ohio State embedding AI horizontally across majors, Miami Dade College developing applied AI programmes through National Science Foundation funding, and InnovateEDU pioneering K-12 instructional models.

Rather than training students for narrow, employer-specific tasks, Flynn emphasised combining foundational academics with durable human skills—such as adaptability and problem-solving—while expanding career exploration as early as middle school to counter systemic lag in education policy.