Who Needs Teachers When You Have AI?

 No Teachers Needed, AI is doing the job

Everyone knows that AI can never replace teachers-Right!  Well, seems that could be wrong.  Alpha is a chain of private schools that educates kids from grades k-12 using AI to teach core subjects in just two hours a day.  No teachers needed.

The school does not have homework or textbooks.  Kids just sit in front of laptops.  A typical day begins around 9.  There is a group activity that introduces the life skill of the day.  Students then get headsets or VR sets to enjoy the day’s curriculum which will include 30-minute sessions in math, science, social studies and language arts.  They will also have 20 minutes in something like test taking skills.   The rest of the day is spent in activity workshops in skills such as financial literacy or problem solving.

Alpha was founded by a tech billionaire, MacKenzie Price. Alpha has received high praise from Secretary of Education McMahon.  Some parents have embraced the approach.  But the second school that opened faced some serious blow-back from parents.  Many parents complained that the program was creating significant anxiety in their children.  School officials say much has changed as they learn to do better.  However, Alpha is not allowing ANY independent evaluation of either the model or of the results.  The school says it has hired “world-renowned learning scientists, advanced degreed academic experts and researchers” to assess outcomes.  They insist that students learn two-times faster with this method.   The school has paused any “non-essential” visitors from the outside because the model is so ground-breaking that they could not field all of the requests.  The model has expanded to multiple states and cities.  Some of the schools have a selective focus such as sports or high academic achievement.  Tuition can range up to 75,000 depending on the location.  Children have access to human teachers for some intervention skills including diverse learners.  High achievement can be rewarded with simple prizes but also trips to Europe.  Tuition mostly covers the cost of prizes but families are sometimes asked to contribute to the trips. The teachers are called guides and are NOT required to have any training in education, only a bachelor’s degree in any field.  All guides need to sign an NDA. Guides are directly told they are not to teach. Instead kids are directed to Google or YouTube to discover answers to questions.

It’s all about the metrics.   When these kids grow up, how will they name their favorite teacher-a machine?  Does that matter?