The globalist-minded Council on Foreign Relations is urging state and local officials, as well as other leaders, to transform the education system, claiming that looming changes in the economy and the workplace will require workers who are properly "educated" and "trained" for the new paradigm. The effort seeks to "reverse-engineer" every part of the education and workforce training system, and ensure that components are "all walking in lockstep." In interviews with The New American, two of the CFR task force members involved in developing the recommendations warned of major problems ahead for America if the organization's ideas were not acted upon — and soon.

However, also in interviews with The New American, education experts, critics of technocratic governance, and leading lawmakers all sounded the alarm about the CFR's proposed schemes. One expert argued that the educational policies advanced by the task force resemble the tools used by totalitarian regimes such as the communist dictatorships of the Soviet Union and China.