Founded by a podcaster and her tech executive husband, Alpha Schools is a futuristic chain of US charter schools that use AI to teach students and focus on ‘life skills’ rather than reading, writing, and arithmetic.
But now experts have warned that the experimental methods used at the $75,000-a-year schools, which many are likening to the plot of a ‘Black Mirror‘ episode, could be detrimental to kids’ development.
Education tech writer and critic Audrey Watters told The San Francisco Standard that eliminating ‘a classroom where we learn to negotiate and navigate and learn together is not just damaging but, I think, kind of dangerous.’
The K-8 school chain, which is opening a new location in San Francisco, only requires students to partake in two hours of academic work each day.
The rest of the school day is devoted to developing life skills like building sail boats or managing an AirBnB.
This year, students are even working with YouTuber Mr. Beast to develop an app, the school’s bosses told shocked parents.
The goal of the app is to ‘convince 100 million teens the key to their happiness is contributing to their community,’ Alpha principal, Trilogy software founder and billionaire Joe Liemandt said.
Rather than teachers, the school’s classrooms are led by ‘guides’ who act as coaches and incentivize children with ‘Alpha bucks’, which can be exchanged for prizes, donated, or even invested.
Alpha Schools have locations all over the country and center AI in their classroom learning
Founder and podcast host Mackenzie Price claimed that students learn 10 times faster than in traditional learning environments
Founder Mackenzie Price said that they start paying kids in kindergarten.
Children can use their money to buy prizes like Taylor Swift sweatshirts, Lego, and stuffed animals.
Price hosts the Future of Education Podcast and heavily endorses the two hour learning method that her schools use.
The approach revolves around the idea that ‘traditional classrooms fail to meet evolving needs because they’ve remained the same for over a century.’
Price claimed that students at their schools will learn 10 times faster than they would in traditional learning environments.
She and her husband Andrew, who co-founded the charter schools, hope to demonstrate that children can learn values and lessons from a computer.
Liemandt agreed: ‘For years, there have been way better ways to teach kids than a teacher in front of a classroom.
‘It just wasn’t technologically or economically doable until now.’
Principal Joe Liemandt said that there has been a better way to teach students than traditional classroom learning ‘for years’
According to their website, screens are only used for the two academically focused hours in the day, ‘then it’s all hands on.’
They wrote: ‘Think outdoor play, real-world projects, and creative challenges. Tech is a tool not a babysitter.’
He believes that generative AI will ‘revolutionize’ education. All of Alpha’s lesson plans are written by AI and based on AI-written books.
Watters said she worries that new schools like Alpha will rely too much on artificial intelligence.
‘They’ve really leaned into all of this hype that AI is this magic wand that can do anything. It is, I think, snake oil,’ she said.
Alpha School students only spend two hours a day on traditional subjects, before spending the rest of the day doing hands-on learning
She emphasized the importance of learning from the mistakes of other students in a classroom, saying that the traditional environment is the best place for kids to learn how to negotiate and work together.
Pew Research reported earlier this year that a quarter of US teachers think that AI is doing more harm than good in the classroom.
Even prospective parents of Alpha School students said they worried that children engaging in AI learning will be behind their peers, socially inept, or neglect to learn the lesson in patience and collaboration that traditional students learn.
Because the technology and learning method is so new, there is also concern that the lack of evidence may damage students in adulthood, or even that the technology will too-soon become obsolete.
Parent Andrey Svirsky said that because the school’s methodology is so new, there is not yet any evidence to show how it might prepare kids for adulthood – something he pointed out that ‘you cannot really redo it if it doesn’t work out.’
Yet, hundreds of families seem to think the innovation is worth the risk.
The new San Francisco campus is the 14th across the country, with Alpha AI learning schools already established in Los Angeles, New York City, and Miami to name a few.
In 2026, they plan to open locations in Puerto Rico, North Carolina, and Virginia.
The company provides transportation to and from school and even offers summer camp programs.
