This editorial connects policy framework suggestions for AI literacy in elementary and secondary schools and the papers published in this special issue. The suggested framework emphasizes a human-centered vision for AI education, encompassing four domains for students – Human-Centered Mindset, AI Ethics, AI Technology and Application, and AI System Design – and five dimensions for teachers, including AI-Empowered Pedagogy and Professional Development, aligning with UNESCO AI Competency Frameworks for Students and for Teachers. Collectively, the featured papers illustrate how this policy vision can be enacted through evidence-based practice: a systematic review of AI in primary education highlights pedagogically grounded, equity-driven approaches; an empirical study on an ethical reasoning curriculum demonstrating how responsible AI thinking can be taught and assessed; a constructionist review showcases hands-on, design-based strategies that foster active learning and creativity; a qualitative study on generative AI in the applied arts reveals new professional literacies for an AI-augmented creative economy; a GenAI-integrated data-science course illustrates how usability, reliability, privacy, and ethics can be woven into disciplinary learning; a survey of preservice STEM teachers identifies affective and experiential predictors of AI self-efficacy for educators; a Structured Controversy platform shows how debate and case-based reasoning can cultivate nuanced ethical judgment in computer science students; and a problem-based mathematics course demonstrates how we can teach students to discern which types of AI tools can better support different problem-solving tasks in real-world business contexts. Together, these studies illuminate a coherent pathway from policy to practice – one that advances human-centered, ethical, and sustainable AI literacy across lifelong learning and development.