We cannot keep teaching checkers when the world has moved forward playing chess.

As global competition intensifies, the United States must confront a harsh reality: its education system is stuck in the past. The framework we use to prepare students—from elementary classrooms to university lecture halls—is an artifact of an Industrial Age economy, outdated in a world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, machine learning, and mobile technology. We are trying to retrofit 20th-century methods for 21st-century realities, and it simply isn’t working.

A recent Fortune article titled “China’s 6-year-olds are being offered AI classes in school—and now 250 CEOs want the lessons to come to America” noted that more than 250 CEOs and business leaders identified AI literacy as the fastest-growing skill required in today’s workforce. What, then, are we doing in America to keep up?

Too little—and too late.

We are setting up future generations for failure by clinging to educational concepts that were designed to churn out assembly-line workers. Instead, we should be teaching digital fluency, cognitive flexibility, and critical thinking—skills aligned with the realities of the mobile Internet age and, increasingly, the AI age. What is urgently needed is not only a new system but also a new mindset among educators and administrators, many of whom remain oblivious to the scale of this paradigm shift.

You cannot solve 21st-century problems with 20th-century blueprints.

As the keynote speaker at the recent International Conference on Education and Distance Learning hosted by Science Leagues, I addressed this very crisis in my talk, “Building Cognitive Competencies Early in Education.” The core of my argument was simple: We need to rethink the foundational structure of both K–12 education and higher learning, anchoring them in cognitive science and technology—not rote memorization and test prep.

There’s a broader political backdrop to all this, including the ongoing debate over whether the Department of Education should be dismantled. That conversation deserves its own forum. But on outcomes alone, the department has fallen far short of expectations, particularly when measured against the substantial investment it has received since the 1970s. If we’re not seeing meaningful returns in literacy, numeracy, or workforce preparedness, we have to ask: Is the system delivering value for the money?

Consider just four federal initiatives:

School Improvement Grants (SIG), with over $7 billion in funding, aimed to transform underperforming schools. A 2017 Department of Education study found it had no measurable impact on reading or math scores, graduation rates, or college enrollment.

The American Graduation Initiative was launched with a proposed $12 billion (ultimately reduced to $2 billion) and aimed to produce 5 million more community college graduates over a decade. It failed to meet those goals.

The Reading First Program, which received about $1 billion annually, aimed to boost early-grade literacy through “scientifically based” methods. Internal audits later exposed conflicts of interest and revealed limited, if any, positive outcomes.

The Comprehensive School Reform (CSR) initiative, which concluded in 2005, promised to implement research-based strategies to improve academic achievement. Its impact was narrow, inconsistent, and ultimately unsustainable.

These four programs are only a fraction of the more than $1 trillion invested in American public education since 1980. And yet today, we see high school graduates with lower proficiency in math and reading than previous generations.
The COVID-19 pandemic only accelerated the decline.

From 2020 to 2024, fourth-grade reading proficiency dropped from 35% in 2019 to 31% in 2024. For eighth graders, the rate slid to just 30%, with no states showing gains compared to pre-pandemic levels. In math, fourth-grade proficiency rose slightly from 36% in 2022 to 39% in 2024—but still remained below the 2019 level of 41%. For eighth graders, scores increased modestly from 26% to 28% yet remained significantly below the 2019 mark of 34%. In every case, national score trends have either stagnated or declined.

The conclusion is sobering: over four decades of reform and investment, and yet no significant progress for 12th-grade students in reading or math. What, precisely, did we buy with that trillion-dollar investment?

We need to move beyond political theatrics and ask a more fundamental question: Why is a high school diploma today insufficient to secure even an entry-level job—when, fifty years ago, it opened doors to apprenticeships, manufacturing roles, and stable careers?

More than a decade ago, I wrote a report for George Mason University’s School of Law titled “Why Johnny Isn’t Ready to Take on Today’s Jobs: The Need for FACT-Based Skill Sets.” The argument then remains true today: the old three Rs—rote, repetition, and routine—have no place in the modern workforce. In their place, we need FACT-based skills: Critical Thinking, Research Skills, Digital Literacy, Data Literacy, Fact-Checking, Ethical Standards, Collaboration Skills, and Information Literacy.

Sadly, I’ve seen little progress since publishing that report.

The education system must be rebuilt from the ground up, creating a platform that fosters these core competencies and prepares students to compete in an AI-driven labor market. In an upcoming article for the American Intelligence Journal, titled “Foundations of Educational Skill Sets Needed for the 21st Century Military and Cognitive Competitiveness,” I explore how we can instill foundational cognitive skills in students as early as grade school—skills that can carry them through college and into the professional world.

A recent article put it bluntly: “If the human brain is the new battlefield of the 21st century, we must do everything possible to prepare the next generation to build a foundation of cognitive skill sets, ensuring a fair playing field.”

This is no longer a theoretical debate. It’s an urgent call to action. Without cognitive readiness, without a recalibrated educational model, the next generation of Americans will fall further behind in a world where AI doesn’t just assist—it defines the rules of the game.