On April 23, 2025, the White House issued an Executive Order (EO) titled Advancing Artificial Intelligence Education for American Youth, signaling a long-overdue commitment to integrate AI education across K-12 schools that equips students and educators for an AI-driven workforce and civic life. The EO calls for early exposure to AI concepts and technology in K-12 education, the development of public-private partnerships, and prioritization of AI-related teacher training for understanding and integrating AI responsibly into classrooms. 

The EO marks a critical and timely national investment in equipping the next generation with essential AI competencies. By prioritizing AI education from the K-12 level, the U.S. takes a strategic step toward preparing future workforce competitiveness. At the GENIUS Center, we are cautiously optimistic about the potential benefits this EO will bring to K-12 education. Like many others in the field, we believe that the success of the EO hinges not on rhetoric, but on strategic follow-through of AI education, sustainable funding, and most importantly focus on delivering high-quality teacher training (Koenig, 2025). 

CRPE’s recent work with RAND shows that access to AI-related professional development (PD) is expanding (Lake, 2025). However, concerns remain about the quality of those offerings. As they warn, low-quality PD may be more harmful than helpful, especially in an area as rapidly evolving as AI.  As highlighted in EducationWeek, true AI literacy goes beyond tool usage (Prothero & Langreo, 2025). Teachers and students must also learn how to interact with AI critically, manage its influence responsibly, and even co-create AI-powered solutions. 

We believe that high-quality AI PD for educators hinges on the following key criteria:  

Build both AI literacy and integration competence: Teachers need to first understand what AI is and how it works, including evaluating AI systems and their applications, before they can use them to support instruction or develop students’ AI literacy (Digital Promise, 2024).   

Emphasize responsible and ethical use of AI: Teachers should be prepared to evaluate and implement AI tools in ways that support thoughtful and evidence-based instructional practices. While the push for AI integration and teacher AI PD is timely and necessary, it’s essential that educators are equipped to use AI tools responsibly and ethically, prioritizing thoughtful implementation over rapid adoption.  

Deliver in “multimodal, ongoing, and adaptable” formats: As CRPE (Lake, 2025) explains, AI PD needs to be delivered through various formats and timeframes to meet teachers’ varying needs. Ongoing support is key to ensure durable impact.    

Meanwhile, the GENIUS Center is actively developing curriculum and AI tools to support AI education in the context of K-12 STEM+C education. Our work focuses on large language model-empowered GenAgents development, GenAgent-facilitated science and engineering practices, teachers’ responsible and ethical use of AI professional development, and national leadership on AI policy, research, and education. Our work aligns well with the EO’s call for strategic implementation of AI education in K-12 schools. The work at GENIUS will support AI-empowered STEM+C education, improve student AI literacy, and prompt teachers’ competencies on effective integrating AI to prepare future workforce competitiveness.  

While the EO offers a promising vision of K-12 AI education, the absence of dedicated funding and implementation infrastructure remains a significant barrier. As Drozda (2025) has pointed out, the vision is ambitious, but without Congressional support, the EO risks becoming a blueprint without a budget.). The opportunity is real, but requires coordinated, well-resourced action to realize it (Vinall, 2025).