Cultivating Kidpreneurship in the USA: TheSPARK Framework for AI-Driven BusinessSimulation-Based Entrepreneurial Developmentin K-12 Education

The United States is simultaneously experiencing a historic surge in entrepreneurial activity and adeepening readiness gap in its K-12 education system. U.S. Census Bureau data show that 5,479,144 newbusiness applications were filed in 2023 - a record high - and the 2024-2025 Global EntrepreneurshipMonitor U.S. report finds that 18-to-24-year-olds now exhibit the highest entrepreneurial intentions of anycohort, with 24% currently engaged in early-stage venture activity (Babson College, 2025; U.S. CensusBureau, 2025). Yet 17% of American 15-year-olds fall below baseline financial-literacy proficiency(OECD, 2024), 86% of students report using generative AI in school, while 58% of educators havereceived no formal AI training (Hunt Institute, 2025), and the post-ESSER fiscal cliff has constraineddistrict capacity to invest in advanced ed-tech (Utah State Board of Education, 2025). This paper proposesthe SPARK Framework - a conceptual integration of Quidwai's (2023) human-centered prompting routine(Situation, Problem, Aspiration, Results, Kismet) with AI-driven Business Simulation Games (BSGs) - asa scalable pedagogical architecture for cultivating kidpreneurship in U.S. K-12 education. AdoptingJaakkola's (2020) theory-synthesis methodology, the paper integrates Kolb's (1984) Experiential LearningTheory, Ajzen's (1991) Theory of Planned Behaviour, Nonaka and Takeuchi's (1995) SECI knowledge-creation model, the European Commission's EntreComp competence framework (Bacigalupo et al., 2016),and Long and Magerko's (2020) AI literacy competencies. The synthesis yields a five-panel conceptualarchitecture that operationalizes kidpreneurship development across cognitive, affective, behavioral,educational and economic outcome layers. Findings indicate that AI-augmented BSGs, when scaffoldedby SPARK, are positioned to enhance entrepreneurial self-efficacy (Newman et al., 2019), opportunityrecognition, financial literacy and AI literacy concurrently. The paper further offers original contributionsin the form of (i) a novel mapping of SPARK phases onto SECI knowledge dimensions and EntreCompcompetence areas, (ii) a developmental K-12 scaffolding pathway across elementary, middle and highschool, and (iii) an actionable policy roadmap addressing the digital divide, algorithmic bias, and thehuman-in-the-loop imperative. The paper concludes with a structured agenda for empirical validation.