Students at an Alpha School 'shadow day' use platforms such as IXL to learn academic subjects. The school pitches that all of the learning can be done in two hours a day. Photo / Karina Elwood, The Washington Post
The pitch by Alpha School is as innovative as it is sensational: For US$65,000 ($111,140) a year, students study for just two hours a day using adaptive apps and personalised lesson plans.
They spend their afternoons on life skills such as learning to ride a bike or financial literacy.
Instead of teachers, the students have “guides”.
The AI-driven school, which is coming to Northern Virginia this northern autumn and plans to enrol up to 25 primary school-age students at a campus near Dulles International Airport.
It sits at the intersection of two growing spaces in education: alternative schooling and an explosion of online learning platforms used in nearly every corner of the education sphere, from public school classrooms to at-home supplement work.
“What we realised is that kids do not need to sit in class all day doing academics,” said MacKenzie Price, co-founder of Alpha School, which with three campuses across the country has become a very public piece of the push to incorporate more AI learning in schools.
Some of the online learning platforms, like the model at Alpha, promote individualised instruction that meets each student where they are, regardless of grade level or classroom curriculum. Others fully embrace generative artificial intelligence with chatbots and tutors to assist children in their learning.
It is a hard turn from traditional education models of specific subjects, class periods, teachers and homework.
Price, who uses the online handle “Future of Education” and has amassed more than 900,000 followers on Instagram, makes videos about the failures of traditional education and promotes her company as the shining solution.
Price’s operation is also well-connected, backed by a Texas-based tech billionaire and drawing support from other billionaires and politicians across the country.
Earlier this year, Price said, she met Michael Kratsios, director of the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, to demonstrate the approach of Alpha School. The Trump Administration has promoted the use of AI in the federal government and beyond.
In April, President Donald Trump signed an executive order creating a policy to integrate artificial intelligence into school education.
Victor Lee, an associate professor at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education, said that while schools across the country are experimenting with AI, there are large gaps in research on whether it is successful.
That leaves many questions about the ability to broaden the models, he said.
Alpha “is a private school, which tends to attract families with financial resources, highly educated and providing lots of enrichment”, Lee said.
“So when we try to generalise or extend what we’ve learned from this to schools writ large, there are some important differences to note.
“And so, how much of this is kind of the distinctive curation of students versus the design structure of the school?”
Price is also a staunch supporter of the school choice movement. Since 2023, she’s donated more than US$2 million to Republican candidates and political action committees that support alternative options to traditional public schools - including US$1m to Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin (Republican) two years ago.
Price has ventured into the charter school space, trying to bring the Alpha model into six states in 2024. Only one state - Arizona - approved it. Another state board said the school’s learning model was untested.
“There’s a lot of hesitation around, what does AI look like, and what is this type of thing? And, just because this works so well in a private school model, will it work for the average, and is it okay to have government funds doing that?” Price said. “That’s not up to me. That’s up to the states.”
In the meantime, she said, she’s focused on growing the company’s for-profit schools.
Last year, Alpha School served about 300 students across three campuses in Austin and Brownsville in Texas and Miami, and its learning model is also being used in other micro-schools in Texas. Tuition at the schools varies by campus, ranging from US$15,000 to US$65,000 a year.
The new Virginia school is one of 12 Alpha campuses, from New York to California, being added to the roster. The company recently agreed to acquire assets from Higher Ground Education, parent company of Guidepost Montessori, paving the way to use some of its buildings for Alpha schools, including at a building in Chantilly, Virginia.
On social media and in brochures, Price touts the success of the existing campuses, saying test scores back that up. But critics are quick to suggest that the success of the model works for the self-selected group of students.
“Super highly motivated students, they actually are more actively seeking out more challenging materials to learn. So this kind of opportunities provided by AI platforms does accelerate their learning,” said Ying Xu, an assistant professor at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education.
“But for students who are less motivated, what we have seen is that AI actually might present as a shortcut for their learning.”
On a recent morning in July, about a dozen children sat in front of iPads with black headphones pressed over their ears, clicking through questions on an app.
“Which picture matches the colour red?” a kindergarten-level question asked.
“Choose the number that you hear,” another prompted on the screen.
Since the coronavirus pandemic, about 90% of public schools report having laptops or tablet devices for every student, an ongoing shift that was expedited by pandemic virtual learning.
A 2024 plan from the US Department of Education wrote that because school systems “deployed so much technology on an emergency basis without the benefit of thoughtful planning, change management, or in the service of shared goals, many school systems are struggling to make the most of these new technologies.”
In recent years, some parents have called for less screen time in classrooms, particularly for younger grades.
As the students played on the app last month, a classroom “guide” using a chipper teacher voice stopped them every 10 to 15 minutes, gathering the group together for a brain break. A YouTube video was projected onto a screen, directing students to shake and jump for a bit before they went back to the iPads.
The exercise in Virginia was part of a “shadow day”, an opportunity for families interested in Alpha School to send their children for a test run of a typical day at the school. The event was held in a hotel conference room at Dulles.
Price said the shadow days also offer Alpha staff members a chance to see if children have the motivation and attention span to excel in the school’s environment.
“What we’re looking for with these students is coachability, right?” Price said. “And are they interested and excited about what they’re doing?”
While the pitch of Alpha School is that all the learning happens with the help of an “AI tutor”, the curriculum is not generated by artificial intelligence and students do not use chatbots, Price said.
Instead, Alpha uses adaptive learning platforms such as IXL, which offers instructional resources and data analytics services for individuals and school districts. IXL’s website says about one in four students nationwide use the platform, many in public school classrooms.
The Alpha School’s software uses diagnostics and machine learning to personalise lessons for students.
Price said the school also uses artificial intelligence to monitor how intently students are working on their computers, recording screen activity and monitoring keystrokes.
If a student isn’t taking the time to read lessons, flying through prompts or not paying attention to the computer, a coaching tool will remind them to slow down and refocus.
Price says analysis by Alpha shows students using the school’s model learn twice as much as students in traditional classrooms and are performing in the top 1% around the country.
She said the school uses assessments from NWEA to measure a student’s level and growth throughout the year, then compares it to test results of students in public, private and home schools across the country.
The use of the Alpha technology, she said, means the school’s “guides” can spend the rest of the day helping students build other skills and explore their passions in workshops.
Workshops focus on skills such as being able to ride a bike 8km without stopping, or scaling a rock wall. Older students engage in projects such as managing an Airbnb property.
Guides are not required to have teaching licences or an education background.
As Alpha School grew, Price began venturing into the charter school space. Last year, she submitted applications in at least six states to open Unbound Academy, a cyber charter school that would use Alpha’s two-hour learning model and software.
The applications were denied in every state except Arizona, which is known for its robust charter school system and voucher programmes. More than 232,000 students in the state attend charter schools.
In its denial, a Pennsylvania education board wrote that “the artificial intelligence instructional model being proposed by this school is untested and fails to demonstrate how the tools, methods and providers would ensure alignment to Pennsylvania academic standards.”
Price has been an active and vocal proponent of the school choice movement. Federal campaign finance data shows Price, under the name “Future of Learning LLC,” donated US$250,000 in January 2024 to a PAC for the American Federation for Children, an organisation founded by former education secretary Betsy DeVos to lobby for the expansion of school choice.
In Texas, Price donated US$500,000 to Republican Governor Greg Abbott in June. She previously donated US$450,000 to Abbott.
Her husband, Andrew Price, donated US$275,000 to the Family Empowerment Coalition, a Texas-based group lobbying for the expansion of school choice.
Earlier this year, Abbott signed legislation approving a voucher programme that will allow Texas families to use public taxpayer dollars to pay for private schools or other education expenses, such as Price’s expanding network of schools in the state.
Price said the voucher programme would bring “tuition for a family down to US$5000 a year, which becomes much more palatable”.
Price also is tied to a US$1m donation made to Youngkin’s Spirit of Virginia campaign in May 2023.
Youngkin has been a vocal supporter of school choice, particularly charter schools. He promised on the campaign trail to open 20 new charter schools in Virginia, a state that has been opposed to school choice in recent decades.
Youngkin has made little progress on opening charter schools, as state law only allows local school districts to approve charter schools.
He has made other efforts, including opening more than a dozen lab schools, which are public schools opened through partnerships with higher education institutions, around Virginia.
In an interview, Price said Youngkin visited Austin in 2023 to tour the Alpha School campus there. She said she was impressed by his positions on school choice. Shortly afterwards, the Future of Education LLC was registered and the donation was made.
“I am a huge supporter of any states that want to implement school choice. I like school choice, and Governor Youngkin was trying to get school choice passed, and that was something that I wanted to support,” Price said. “I believe families should have as many options as possible when it comes to school.”
The Wall Street Journal reported that billionaire Bill Ackman has been promoting the school and was set to appear on an education panel with Alpha School leaders last week as part of the Milken Institute’s Hamptons Dialogues.
Ackman, a hedge fund billionaire who endorsed Donald Trump’s 2024 candidacy, has been a key face of the charge against diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and led a successful campaign to oust Harvard University’s first black president.
On X, Ackman called the model “the first truly breakthrough innovation in K-12 education” since Kipp Academy, a national network of charter schools. “The bottom line: Alpha kids love school and have incredible outcomes,” Ackman wrote.
As Alpha School’s “shadow day” wrapped in Chantilly last month, parents gathered in the conference room to pick up their children.
Price said 15 families had initially expressed interest in filling the school’s 25 slots.
Parents said they were drawn to the alternative model because it gave their children more flexibility and potentially freed up time for other enriching experiences.
Ricardo Rosselló’s 7-year-old son bounded over to him holding a kit to build a robot - a prize he redeemed with “Alphas”, an incentive programme the school uses to reward good behaviour.
Rosselló, a father-of-two and the former embattled governor of Puerto Rico who resigned in 2019 amid controversy and widespread protests on the island, said he and his wife had been following Alpha School online for over a year.
Impressed by the model, Rosselló said the couple got together a few families and told Alpha that they would be interested in being a founding family if the model expanded to Northern Virginia.
Rosselló, who ushered in vouchers and charter schools in Puerto Rico, said the school’s model could help maximise the potential of his two children.
“While the AI piece is great, it’s cutting-edge, it’s innovative, it’s what it allows you to do in the rest of the time that’s really, really compelling and powerful,” Rosselló said.
The shadow day won the family over: The Rossellós are planning for their son to be among Alpha’s first students in Virginia.
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