Internal network data shows only 42% of students met the core benchmark of learning twice as fast across both reading and math, with lower-performing math students experiencing the greatest shortfall. Rather than completing their coursework in the promised two hours daily, students frequently worked late into the night while contending with AI-generated software errors. Despite these academic setbacks, the model has grown to roughly 1,500 private school students across 50 campuses and won prominent backers like Reid Hoffman, Bill Ackman, and Education Secretary Linda McMahon. At the same time, more than 2,600 public school students across Texas and South Carolina are now using the network's…
Key points
The school network's proprietary platform failed to deliver its signature promise of acce…: The school network's proprietary platform failed to deliver its signature promise of accelerated academic gains for the majority of its pupils.
Former employees and parents alleged the automated software produced faulty lessons that…: Former employees and parents alleged the automated software produced faulty lessons that forced children to complete extra coursework late at night.
The platform continues to expand into public school systems despite international studies…: The platform continues to expand into public school systems despite international studies linking daily generative AI use to lower student test performance.
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Alpha School, the network of AI-driven private schools charging parents up to $75,000 a year, has won backers from Silicon Valley to the Trump administration. Its own data show most of its students aren’t reaching the model’s central promise.
Only 42% of Alpha students met the network’s goal of learning twice as fast in both math and reading, according to internal data first reported by The New York Times. The findings land as Alpha pushes into public schools, where districts are adopting its software in hopes of fitting more learning into less time.
What Alpha promises parents
Alpha has no traditional teachers. It employs what it calls “guides,” whose job, according to the company’s marketing materials, is to “make every student feel valued and motivated.” Guides don’t plan lessons or grade homework, Fortune reported in September.
The core of the pitch is that students will “learn twice as much as their peers in two hours of academics a day” using TimeBack, an app Alpha markets as an AI tutor. Cofounder MacKenzie Price says the app personalizes and accelerates learning for…
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