The first rung of the career ladder has broken. The starter tasks — data entry, scheduling, drafting, formatting — that once taught young people the rhythms of work are now automated. Students will be expected to bring judgment and initiative much earlier. That reality ripples backward into schools. If the “practice rounds” later in life are thinning out, the practice needs to happen earlier. Children must be given structured chances to face problems, name what’s happening, and shape next...

Entry-level roles used to be the soft beginning of working life. They gave students time to learn by doing, to make mistakes without major consequences, and to grow into responsibility. Today, many of those roles are vanishing. Artificial intelligence now handles much of the predictable, repetitive work that once belonged to interns or junior staff. That doesn’t mean students are less valued — it means they are expected to contribute at a higher level, much earlier. For schools, this raises a...