Latest news with #MacKenziePrice
New York Times
4 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
A.I.-Driven Education: Founded in Texas and Coming to a School Near You
In Austin, Texas, where the titans of technology have moved their companies and built mansions, some of their children are also subjects of a new innovation: schooling through artificial intelligence. And with ambitious expansion plans in the works, a pricey private A.I. school in Austin, called Alpha School, will be replicating itself across the country this fall. Supporters of Alpha School believe an A.I.-forward approach helps tailor an education to a student's skills and interests. MacKenzie Price, a podcaster and influencer who co-founded Alpha, has called classrooms 'the next global battlefield.' 'I've seen the future,' she wrote on social media, 'and it isn't 10 years away. It's here, right now.' To detractors, Ms. Price's '2 Hour Learning' model and Alpha School are just the latest in a long line of computerized fads that plunk children in front of screens and deny them crucial socialization skills while suppressing their ability to think critically. 'Students and our country need to be in relationship with other human beings,' said Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, a teachers' union. 'When you have a school that is strictly A.I., it is violating that core precept of the human endeavor and of education.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Business Journals
6 days ago
- General
- Business Journals
Reimagining school: How MacKenzie Price is disrupting education with Alpha School's groundbreaking learning model
As a mom concerned about the quality of her child's education, MacKenzie Price had a wake-up call 10 years ago. That's when her daughter told her she didn't want to go to school because it was boring. The comment felt like a 'gut punch' to the mom of two and conjured up memories of her own childhood as a kid who hated school. At the same time, her children's experiences in the Austin, Texas, public school system had given her a firsthand look at the lack of personalization in the classroom. The model of a teacher standing in front of a group of 20 students and delivering instructions to all of them in the same way, regardless of how each child learned, didn't seem like the best way to get kids to excel. 'I saw the path my girls were on and couldn't see them spending the next several years of their lives playing that game,' Price said. 'It's a model problem. The teacher in front of the classroom is an inefficient way to learn.' Creating a new model for education Price likens the traditional six-hour school day to using a dial phone in the age of smartphones. Education, she thought, needed a revolution. That led her to create the '2-Hour Learning model' to empower students to focus on core academics in just two hours a day, freeing up the rest of the school day for them to work with their guides to pursue their passions and master life skills. Her vision became a reality with the launch of the first Alpha School in Austin in 2014. The private school network has since grown to eight locations, including one in South Miami-Dade at 8000 S.W. 56th St., which opened in August 2024. Ten more schools are expected to open this year, including in West Palm Beach. 'South Florida is a vibrant and growing area, and we're answering the call from families who want to have a new educational model that's more innovative in its approach,' Price said. 'When you combine the people who are native to the area with the many people who are moving here, there's a ton of intellectual vibrancy in South Florida.' The first Alpha School in Miami started with six students. This August, more than 60 will study there. Alex Kiser, the head of school for Alpha Miami, said in a recent Instagram video, that she was drawn to the school by a combination of two things she came to love during her time working at Google — innovation and experimentation. 'We have taken your traditional school day and shrunk it to two hours,' Kiser said. 'That leaves a lot of time to create exciting, engaging workshops for students.' An AI-powered model Alpha School, which received its accreditation from the nonprofit Cognia, was founded on three commitments. Kids will love school — Alpha's leaders believe that when engagement meets high standards, it nurtures a lifelong passion for learning. Guides, not teachers, make every student feel valued and motivated. Learn 2X in two hours — Through advanced technologies and mastery-based learning, students complete core subjects in just two hours daily. Alpha combines adaptive artificial intelligence (AI) for personalized one-to-one learning, mastery-based methods for deep understanding and time management techniques like Pomodoro to keep students focused and thriving. Life skills for the future — By focusing on more than just academics, Alpha prepares students for life by teaching essential, actionable skills. This happens via workshops that focus on public speaking, coding, entrepreneurship, outdoor education and financial literacy to build grit, creativity and adaptability. Marrying life skills to future-ready students will ensure they are ready for what they'll encounter when they enter the job market, Price said. AI is changing the state of work and transforming roles. Alpha students are trained on different AI tools to give them AI superpowers, and they've used the technology to develop film projects, land rovers and creative arts. Gauging success When comparing students' test scores to other students in a specific group, Alpha has achieved remarkable results. Students have advanced from the 31st percentile to the 86th percentile within one year, and on average, Alpha students are in the 90th percentile compared to their peers nationwide. 'The reason our model is so successful is that we have transformed the role of the teacher,' Price said. 'Instead of focusing on lesson plans and lectures, our guides are focused on motivational and emotional support and mentorship. They know every kid and what motivates them. They run our workshops in the afternoon and get to help them build these critical life skills. They're helping us create confident, capable and independent learners.' That includes a group of fifth and sixth grade students who, as part of their life skills education, started their own food truck business. They had to learn how to put together a budget, shop for and cook food, purchase supplies and a food trailer, secure necessary permitting and market the business. They also learned to work as a team of line cooks and order takers. Over one summer, after serving breakfast foods at car dealerships and different events around town, they also learned how to calculate a net profit of $4,000.
Business Journals
09-06-2025
- Business
- Business Journals
AI in the classroom and beyond: Preparing for a new era of learning
Recognizing the sweeping impact of AI on education and careers, the Austin Business Journal assembled a panel of educators, a technology expert, and a high school student to share insights on what lies ahead. Panelists included MacKenzie Price, Co-founder of 2-Hour Learning and Alpha Schools; Dr. Ju Long, Professor in the Department of Information Systems & Analytics at Texas State University; Bjorn Billhardt, CEO of Abilitie; and Alex Mathew, a student at Alpha High School. Moderated by Abby Mellott, Market President & Publisher of the Austin Business Journal, the conversation highlighted the opportunities and challenges AI presents — from personalizing education and accelerating skill development to navigating ethical concerns. Abby Mellott: How is your institution currently integrating AI into the classroom, and what impact have you seen on student learning outcomes? MacKenzie Price: I'll start, because this is absolutely my area of expertise. One of the most exciting things happening right now is that, with artificial intelligence, we can finally deliver that one-to-one, mastery-based experience to every student. In our model, we've completely thrown out the teacher-in-front-of-the-classroom approach. All of our academic instruction happens through personalized, adaptive apps. That allows us to transform the teacher's role entirely. Instead of spending their time on lesson planning, grading, or lecturing, our teachers focus solely on motivational and emotional support as well as elite mentorship for every student. As a result, our students are learning twice as fast in only a couple hours a day as their peers in traditional classrooms. What's really beautiful about this kind of personalized learning is that we can meet any student exactly where they are and get them learning, whether they're in the 10th percentile or the 95th. As a result, our students are consistently in the top one or two percent nationally. We can take a student who's behind and bring them up to the 50th percentile in a year, and up to the 90th percentile in two years. We're also able to fill in learning gaps — so if a fifth grader comes to us with holes in their second, third, or fourth grade knowledge, we can fill in those holes and get them back on track. Dr. Ju Long: At a large, traditional university like ours, we're doing our best to incorporate AI into our programs. In my department alone, we've launched two new programs with AI concentrations in the past year: one at the undergraduate level within the BBA program, and another at the graduate level, part of our MSD program — Master of Science in Data Analytics and Information Systems. We've also developed new courses. At the undergraduate level, we now offer a machine learning class that is really focused on deep learning. At the MBA level, we have a case-based class that focuses on generative AI business applications to prepare future business leaders to be AI-ready. For our graduate students, we also have a more technical course focused entirely on generative AI. Even in existing classes, we're including AI content. In my own course on product management, students use AI as a sort of co-pilot — helping with ideation and iterative development. I teach them how to prompt AI as if it were a product manager and then assess the results: when to accept, when to reject, and why. It's all very iterative and project-based. They develop a digital or physical product, sometimes using 3D printing to actually print out a prototype, and receive AI-driven critiques on their work. BJORN Billhardt: We've been doing leadership simulations that put people in real situations where they have to make decisions about business outcomes, and it's so much more engaging than any lecture or class discussion. That's been our model for 25 years, and it's worked really well for subjects that we teach, like finance, financial literacy and supply chain management. But when we simulated anything that had to do with what's now called durable skills — the softer skills — we always had this struggle where the simulation environments we built were a little two-dimensional. And so two years ago, when I first had my kid show me what you can do with AI — my kid's in ninth grade — I realized it would change everything about how we teach, not just the soft, durable skills but also the hard skills. For us, it's one of those once-in-a-lifetime shifts. About a year and a half ago, we realized we needed to AI-enable every single product line. We're about 70% there. And there are use cases we're finding now that are even more powerful than we expected. We're just at the beginning of discovering how powerful these AI use cases are going to be. I think education is going to level up in the next 10 years in ways we're only starting to imagine. Abby Mellott: What challenges do you face or foresee as the adoption of AI continues? Dr. Ju Long: I think the challenge is that it's still too early. People are still trying to see what AI can do. It's a lot of trial and error, and a lot of learning is happening at the course and faculty level. What our university and our college are trying to do is see how we can integrate all this effort. We want to learn from each other and have more knowledge sharing so we can convince the people who are still hesitant. We want to show them that it's effective — and not very difficult to do at all. Ease of use and concerns about effectiveness are big issues we can address through sharing. Alex Mathew: From the consumer side, when I told my parents I wanted to go to a school that was fully run by AI with no teachers, they were scared. They were like, 'What is this place?' I think one of the biggest challenges is that a lot of people make assumptions about what this might look like, and they don't want to give it a try. There's a real worry about losing the humanity part of school or about not having as much interaction with friends. MacKenzie Price: What we found, as part of educating a broader audience, is that you have a kindergarten mom asking, 'What is the point of school? What does my kid need to learn for the next 12 years if you have everything at your fingertips?' You have computer science majors at Stanford questioning, 'Is my job going to exist in two years? What can I do?' You have law schools asking, 'How are we supposed to teach our lawyers when a brief can be written automatically?' Nowadays, it's no longer just about the three Rs — reading, writing and arithmetic — it's about the four Cs: critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity. We've shown that you don't need to sit in class all day plus hours of homework to crush academics. So the question becomes, 'What do you do with all of this extra time?' and 'How are humans going to continue to stay on the frontier of creativity when AI knows the black-and-white facts of the world so far?' Alex Mathew: I think another challenge or worry is that students might become too dependent on AI. And so the way to not become dependent on AI is to use it and beat AI. In high school, we actually have a workshop called How Can You Beat AI? In your masterpiece project — I can get to the masterpiece later — one of the biggest goals is to become a true expert in the project that you're building. If AI knows the same amount you do, you're only at the same level. Your goal is to be better than AI. One of the things we're always ourselves asking is, 'How can you be insightful and create new knowledge?' The only way to do that is to leverage the efficiency of AI, see where it's at, and then expand beyond it. Abby Mellott: How do you balance academic integrity with the rise of AI tools that can write essays or solve complex problems for students? Dr. Ju Long: AI is challenging for everyone, including teachers. The old assessment of learning outcomes can no longer work. If I ask students to write me a paper, I can't tell if it's written by AI. So what I do is move from product-based learning to more of a process-based learning. I want to see how they move from A to B and have them show me the steps. The homework I give and the exams and quizzes are a lot longer — it's not just "write me a paper." For example, if it's a simple homework assignment like reading, I don't ask them for a summary. I ask them to annotate the reading, to highlight what they think, so they have to really think critically. Another piece is that it's very experiential now. Students can choose their own personal projects, like what Alex mentioned. One of my colleagues collaborates with the Williamson County Police Department, where they have tons of audio and video evidence that they need to process. The students use the AI skills they learned in the classroom to analyze that evidence. So it can be very service and experience based, applied directly in the real world. BJORN Billhardt: I saw a cartoon recently where three people are standing on a beach. One says, "But what about cheating?" Another says, "AI can't draw hands," and another says, "AI can't do math," while a huge tsunami wave labeled "AI" looms in the background. It's going to happen. The best analogy I have is from 1998 when the internet first came out. Everyone worried, 'oh no, now anyone can post an answer key online.' But we figured it out. We still have tests. We learned how to incorporate that new technology while keeping the human element in education. Nowadays, you can't imagine doing a school project without internet research. We adjusted, and I think we'll be able to do the same with AI. MacKenzie Price: A lot of people, when they think about AI and learning, think of a chatbot, right? That's actually the one thing we don't use in our education model. Instead, we're using AI as the underlying platform that monitors the level, accuracy, efficiency, and effectiveness of what the student is learning. We believe that kids now have the ability to put knowledge into their brain almost like Neo in "The Matrix." It can be put in very efficiently. So we take the approach of getting that academic knowledge in quickly, and then spending the afternoons applying it in project-based ways. We don't have homework, so it's not like kids are going home and asking ChatGPT to write essays for them. They're doing their academic work in the morning, and then we're able to incorporate all the proven learning science techniques — spaced repetition, rapid feedback, regular quizzing — that help kids learn without cheating. Abby Mellott: Alex, let's transition to you. Tell us about your journey from public school to Alpha School and what it was like moving from one end of the spectrum to the other. Alex Mathew: Yeah, very wild experience. At my traditional school, I spent about eight hours a day in class, learning the normal way — teacher at the front of the room, students at their desks. Then I'd go home and spend another three or four hours locked in my room trying to study, finish homework, and complete all these busywork assignments. After that, I would try to cram in all the things I actually loved doing, like hanging out with friends or exploring what my passion is. I would end up losing a lot of sleep, and every day felt like I was changing my focus. I was struggling on the academic side, and on the passion side and being present with my friends and family. Overall, it was just a bad quality of life. I was also just so tired of being defined by this one metric — grades — and constantly comparing my grades with my friends. It turned into this toxic feedback loop. When I heard about Alpha, I was like, 'I have to go there.' What really stood out was the focus on process-based learning and actually learning how to learn. When I came to Alpha, I was reading at an eighth-grade level — even though I'm an 11th grader — but I was doing college-level math. So I could go at the pace I needed to for each subject. Now, I'm at a college level in both reading and math. But my favorite part about Alpha isn't the academics, it's the masterpiece. So a masterpiece is a passion project where you dive deep into something you love, but with the highest standards possible. We're not aiming to be the best for our age group; we're aiming to be the best in the world — like an Olympian. You can take it in any direction and go as deep as you want. When I got to Alpha, I quickly found what I was passionate about, and I'm still diving deep into that rabbit hole. Abby Mellott: Very cool to hear your story. I'm sure your parents are proud of you and glad that you convinced them you should go to Alpha. Alex Mathew: Yeah. It took a lot of convincing. Abby Mellott: Can you talk about some of the partnerships or collaborations you're working on — whether with tech companies, universities or others — to help prepare students for the job market, especially as AI continues to evolve so quickly? Dr. Ju Long: In my own classes, where I teach machine learning and generative AI, we often have to be resourceful. Universities don't have the deep pockets that major tech companies do, so we work with open-source technologies whenever possible. One company we collaborate with is GaiaNet. We also use open-source large language models like Meta's Llama, as well as many other models that are publicly available. And on the university side, we benefit from partnerships like the one we have with Microsoft. Through Azure, students receive $100 in credits, which is plenty to support a full course in a semester. MacKenzie Price: Bjorn, since we're talking about preparing students for an AI-driven market, and I know you're already leveraging AI for other purposes, are you also offering AI training as well? BJORN Billhardt: That's a good question. We really have not created a "how to use AI" course. Actually, I feel that a lot of the AI courses out there right now might be less effective than they appear to be at first. I often compare it to when the Internet first became popular. Back in 1997, there were tons of courses on "how to use the Internet," but in the end, it was really just about learning how to search online. I feel like a lot of today's AI courses are similar — focused on things like how to write a good prompt. That's valuable, but it's a five-minute training, not a full course or curriculum. So I predict that, just like there's no degree in Internet Studies today, we probably won't see a degree or full curriculum in AI Studies. MacKenzie Price: I don't think there will be either. But what we focus on with our students is helping them become AI-first in everything they do. I think that's going to be the biggest shift moving forward. We've actually partnered on an initiative called Gauntlet AI — it's a 12-week boot camp program. Our first cohort ranged in age from 17 to 54, and after just 12 weeks, many of them graduated with $200,000 job offers waiting for them. Corporations want AI-first people, not because they've graduated in AI Studies, but because they can go be expert marketers, coders, or entrepreneurs. That's what's so exciting — giving people the durable skills they need. And that's exactly what we want for our students: to go into whatever passion or interest they have and utilize AI to free up more time for the human side. BJORN Billhardt: I think the best way to prepare people is through real projects — the kind where you actually have to use AI to collaborate with others and create something, not just learn from a chatbot. As for the future of jobs, I think they're changing rapidly. STEM fields have traditionally been in high demand, but — and I may have a slight bias as a liberal arts major — I believe liberal arts skills are going to become more and more important. Skills like asking the right questions, connecting ideas across disciplines, and seeing the bigger picture will be paramount. Those are the kinds of human abilities AI won't easily replace in the next few years. MacKenzie Price: I'll share an example of that: We have a student at Alpha named Sloan who has 2 million TikTok followers. In the past, success in tech was all about knowing how to code. But Sloan realized that coding an app is the easy part; distribution is the real challenge. Building an audience is the harder, more valuable skill. Alex is leveraging this too, because if you can reach customers, the rest becomes much easier. Abby Mellott: Shifting back to you, Alex. You mentioned your passion project, which incorporates self-care, mental health and AI. Can you tell us a little more about it? Alex Mathew: Yeah, so the project I'm building is called Berry. It's an AI-powered stuffed animal you can hold and talk to about your mental health. I'm working with therapists, neuroscientists, and psychologists to design the back end, making sure all the advice Berry gives is very personalized, vetted by experts, and that it's legit. I believe that AI-powered transitional objects, like plushies, could actually be better than therapists for teens. There are numerous reasons behind this. One, teens often struggle to connect with much older therapists. Also, there's stigma around seeing a therapist, and traditional therapy can feel like a big commitment. Berry reframes support as a simple daily reflection tool — just five minutes a day — through something cute and approachable. And I believe that will genuinely improve mental health outcomes. Right now, I'm preparing to run a study with a group of 20 teens to track how Berry impacts their mental health over a six-week period. I'm also making a huge sprint toward partnering with a company like Build-A-Bear to launch a "Build-a-Berry" program that would let teens customize their Berry plushies. But my goal isn't to be the best plushie maker in the world — it's to build the best mental health tool in the world. That means focusing on the AI, rather than the manufacturing side, and finding the right partnerships to help streamline it. Abby Mellott: So is it basically a unit that sits inside the bear, like a small computer? And does it talk back to you? Alex Mathew: Yes, it is. And it talks back to you — you can have full conversations with it. There's also an app connected to it where you can enter information about yourself, and it customizes to you. I actually set a cap on how long you can talk to Barry. It's only an hour, because I don't want it to replace real friendships. It's meant to be a supplement. And so it will remember your name and say things like, 'Mackenzie, why are you talking to me so much? You should go talk to your friends.' Abby Mellott: In a more extreme situation, would it suggest to someone that they seek out more help? Alex Mathew: So if you go on Google and type in something related to self-harm or harming others, it'll pull up the National Suicide Hotline. But the problem is that people often don't really want to take action on it. But if someone is talking about those things with Berry, there's an emergency contact system in place. It'll text or call the emergency contact you set at the beginning, and it has to be a registered adult. In the future, I want Barry to be free for schools and covered by insurance. This summer, I'm going to a private school conference with Alpha, and I'm planning to show private school principals why they need to have a Barry in their counselors' offices, so kids can take one home with them. MacKenzie Price: And think about the financial barrier that this is going to remove, as opposed to the cost of weekly therapy, right? Abby Mellott: We touched on this earlier, but what about ethical concerns around data privacy and bias when using AI platforms? MacKenzie Price: Obviously there are valid questions about data privacy. I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on that. What I am an expert in is how to educate children really well. I understand there are concerns, but what we can show is transformative. One of the amazing things about our AI technology is that it's like doing a CAT scan of a child's brain. We know exactly what they know, what they don't know, and where the gaps are — and we can go in and fill those holes. Another thing that excites me is how AI lets us map not only a student's knowledge graph but also their interest graph, and then overlay the two. So that seven-year-old boy who hates to read but loves the Avengers and plays soccer with his best friends? Suddenly, he's reading a choose-your-own-adventure story about saving the world with his soccer buddies — at exactly the right Lexile reading level for him. Suddenly, he wants to read. You can extend that same approach to learning math through fashion design, or teaching financial literacy based on a student's personal goals. So yes, I get very excited about it. And no, I don't spend as much time worrying about the other parts. Abby Mellott: To wrap it up, what role do you see AI playing in education over the next five years? MacKenzie Price: There has never been a more exciting time to be a five-year-old, and there has never been a more exciting time to be a teacher. It's so important for people to understand that education is finally at the point where it can be truly transformed. It's one of the last major industries to experience such a profound change. I hope we see wide-scale adoption, where people really jump in and use these tools fully — not just continue with the old model and add a little smattering of AI here and there. Dr. Ju Long: To build on what Bjorn was saying, it's like that image where three people are standing on the beach and a tsunami is coming. We are definitely already facing the wave, and there's no way to avoid it. The only way forward is to go through it. But I think, in order not to get swept away by the wave, what anchors us is still the human side of learning. In our college, a lot of people, including my own students, ask me, 'Am I going to be replaced by AI?' That's a very legitimate question. What I tell them is: your human agency matters. You decide what you want AI to do for you and how you want to learn. It's the same for faculty — we ask, "Are we going to be replaced by AI?" But when we look at AI as our partner, we can see there's so much potential. We are still in the pilot's seat, even if AI acts as a co-pilot. BJORN Billhardt: What I'm seeing now, and what AI is enabling, is a real shift in the role education plays, not just for kids but also for adults who will need to be reskilled and adapt completely to new ways of working. I believe that's where the world is headed: education becoming integrated into daily life and work. It's a little scary, but it's also incredibly enabling. If we can figure out how to make that kind of education feel productive, not creepy, it will move education from being on the periphery of our society to being central. Alex Mathew: The last thing I'll add is that AI is helping create a more level playing field. It means you can be the best in the world at what you're doing. And it's really leveraging young people's natural curiosity. It allows them to discover what they really love doing at an earlier age, unlocking that potential sooner. Plus, there's now a much wider range of possibilities available to them.
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
A look inside how one Texas private school uses AI to teach
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways (NewsNation) — One Texas private school is using software powered by artificial intelligence to teach students core subjects in as little as two hours a day. Alpha School's Brownsville campus, which serves students from Pre-K through 8th grade, has adopted an AI-driven learning model aimed at accelerating academic progress while allowing more freedom to learn life skills such as public speaking, leadership and financial literacy Students learn the core curriculum through an AI-assisted learning platform, while teachers focus on mentoring, emotional support and teaching practical life skills. In addition to the 'three R's': Reading, writing and arithmetic, leaders emphasize what they call the 'four C's:' Creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and communication. COVID school closures did lasting damage, new book finds On 'Morning in America,' Alpha School co-founder MacKenzie Price explained, 'We're using artificial intelligence to raise human intelligence. Our students receive highly personalized learning, and they're able to complete their core curriculum in just two hours.' With core academics finished by lunchtime, the rest of the school day is dedicated to real-world learning. This includes activities like storytelling, teamwork, and exploring technology tools like AI. For example, kindergartners use an AI program called ChatABC! to learn. 'They're getting to learn how to use AI tools to do things like research animals, and then they build dioramas, and they're learning how to do prompt exercises for AI by writing instructions for their guide or their teacher to be able to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, for example,' Price explained. Can you make money off AI-written children's books? Addressing concerns from parents who worry their child might fall behind in an AI-based system, Price said that each student effectively has a personal tutor. 'So, that fifth grade student who might come to us maybe missing some gaps from fourth or third grade, we can go and fill those gaps in, and then that fifth grade student who is farther ahead and should be doing sixth or seventh grade work, they can do that,' she explained. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to NewsNation.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
AI is running the classroom at this Texas school, and students say 'it's awesome'
At a time when many American students are struggling to keep up, a private school in Texas is doing more with less, much Alpha School, students spend just two hours a day in class, guided by an Artificial Intelligence (AI) tutor. But results are impressive: students are testing in the top 1 to 2% nationally."We use an AI tutor and adaptive apps to provide a completely personalized learning experience," said Alpha co-founder MacKenzie Price during an interview on Fox & Friends."Our students are learning faster. They're learning way better. In fact, our classes are in the top 2% in the country." Exclusive: Mom's Fight With School Over Teen Daughter's Gender Transition Gets Boost From Parents Group After the short morning academic block, the rest of the school day is spent building real-world skills like public speaking, teamwork and financial a Stanford-educated psychologist, said she launched Alpha after her daughters came home from school bored and unchallenged. The first Alpha campus opened in Austin in 2016 after two years of idea was simple and bold: compress core academics into two hours per day using technology, and free up the rest of the day for students to grow in other model appears to be working. Elle Kristine, a junior who's been at Alpha since second grade, shared her experience on Fox & Friends."I have a lot of friends at traditional school," Kristine said. "They're spending all this time on schoolwork, they're so stressed out, and they're just miserable." 'Bad For Parents': School Choice Supporters Protest Exclusion Of Religious Charter In Supreme Court Case "We get all of our academics done in just three hours a day, and then the rest of the day we get to spend doing what we love and working on passion projects," she said."For me, I'm creating a safe AI dating coach for teenagers. It was recently featured in The Wall Street Journal. What 16-year-old has time for that? It's awesome."Alpha currently operates campuses in Austin, Brownsville, and Miami, serving students from Pre-K through high Austin location includes both a K–8 academy and a dedicated high school campus downtown. Alpha's Brownsville school is the fastest growing, and the Miami campus now serves students through 10th is intentionally small, around 150 students at the original Austin site, allowing for a highly personalized experience. Instead of traditional teachers, Alpha employs guides who focus on coaching and emotional support, while AI handles the academic instruction."Our teachers spend all of their time working with our students," Price said. "That human connection can never be replaced by AI. But the AI makes it possible to personalize learning for everyone."With results and parent demand growing, Alpha is now taking its education model nationwide. The school has announced plans to open seven new campuses by Fall locations include:Texas: Houston and Fort Worth (K–8)Florida: Orlando, Tampa, and Palm Beach (K–8)Arizona: Phoenix (K–8)California: Santa Barbara (K–12)New York: New York City (K–8)Applications are already open for many of these sites. Tuition varies by location, averaging around $40,000 to $50,000 annually, though the Brownsville campus is subsidized to make it more accessible."This is infinitely scalable and accessible," Price said. "It's going to help students who are struggling, and also those who are just bored in traditional classrooms." The Alpha School did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment. Read On The Fox News AppOriginal article source: AI is running the classroom at this Texas school, and students say 'it's awesome'
