A.I.-Driven Education: Founded in Texas and Coming to a School Near You

After corporates, it seems like it is the turn of the education sector to witness significant AI transformation as students at Austin’s Alpha School spend just two hours a day on their academics, thanks to AI tools. With that, new Alpha Schools are now set to open in about ten cities this fall.

Austin has been the technological hub for the IT titans to move their infrastructure while building mansions all around the city. However, the tech-leading city now seems to be introducing AI to children via schooling.

Austin-based Alpha School is already leveraging the use of AI in its students’ learning experience. Bigger news is, this school plans to expand across other cities in the country before this fall.

The supporter of Alpha School believes that the use of artificial intelligence for the schooling of children helps significantly to identify and work on the students’ skills and interests. Supporting the statement, MacKenzie Price, co-founder of Alpha, now calls the classroom “the next global battlefield”.

“I’ve seen the future,” Mackenzie writes on social media, “and it isn’t 10 years away. It’s here, right now.”

On the flip side, detractors believe that the 2-hour learning model and Alpha School are doing nothing but plunking the children in front of the screen for even a longer time while eliminating the time for kids to develop crucial socialization and critical-thinking skills.

“Students and our country need to be in a relationship with other human beings. When you have a school that is strictly A.I., it is violating that core precept of the human endeavor and education,” said Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, a teachers’ union.

No matter who thinks what about the subject, it can not be denied that AI in the education sector is already proliferating, as Alpha already has its branches well established in Miami and Brownsville. The upcoming expansion plan is going to spread even more branches of Alpha School around the cities in America, including Orlando and New York City.

“Parents and teachers: We need to embrace this change,” Ms. Price wrote after the US President Trump signed an executive order encouraging A.I. in schools.

In the new 2-hour academic model introduced by Alpha, students only spend 120 minutes reading and studying subjects like mathematics, that too using AI software. The rest of the time, students rely on an Adult Guide powered by AI that helps students to develop practical skills like public speaking, financial literacy, and entrepreneurship.

“You don’t get held back by your peers or what the teacher is teaching,” said Byron Attridge, a rising seventh grader. Byron joined the Alpha school four years ago. He was home-schooled during the COVID pandemic. Byron has shared that he is very much pleased with his academic progress as he is already learning eighth-grade math, ninth-grade reading, and tenth-grade language arts.

The Unbound Academy concept of Alpha has witnessed skepticism as State boards of education in Texas, Pennsylvania, Utah, North Carolina, and Arkansas have rejected the program due to a lack of evidence of its change.

“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,” the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s decision stated, citing “multiple, significant deficiencies.”

Despite of focus on Alpha, many students have decided to switch from Alpha after their middle school to embrace more experience in team sports, prom nights, and student council. Byron, the seventh grader, also shared that he is not sure whether he would like to continue with Alpha in high school.

“If you think of the purpose of schools as to prepare people for the roles of citizenship and democracy, there’s lot of places where you aren’t trying to get kids to race as fast as they can,” said Justin Reich, director of the Teaching Systems Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of the book “Failure to Disrupt: Why Technology Alone Can’t Transform Education.”

Several other public schools have also implemented AI to teach their students. For example, Khanmingo, an AI-based tutoring bot produced by Khan Academy, is used by public schools as their initiatives in AI. The American Federation of Teachers has also recently announced that it would create an AI training hub specially for teachers.

Alpha School has adopted AI as a primary educational driver to move students through academic content. In the midday, students also focus on projects like wilderness training, sports, and cooking, which require interactions with fellow students. For example, the fifth and sixth graders last year created a food truck, which required the students to learn budgeting, strategize a business plan by using a chatbot, and cook eggs.