The Alpha School Controversy - SmarterArticles S1E19

Written by Tim Green, narrated by AI. Listen to the full episode here.

🎙️ Season 1, Episode 19 | Duration: 25:02

Alpha School charges $40,000 a year in tuition and employs no certified teachers. Instead, students sit through two hours of laptop-based "2 Hour Learning" supervised by "guides," while an AI platform tracks their progress and photographs them when engagement flags. The model arrived in Edmond and Tulsa in August 2026, and it raises uncomfortable questions about who holds decision-making power in a classroom run by software.

This episode uses AI voice narration from ElevenLabs Studio.

A Premium Price for No Teachers

Alpha School's pitch is disarmingly simple: replace teachers with an AI platform and free up the rest of the day for life-skills workshops. The tuition, however, is $40,000, putting it among the most expensive private schools in Oklahoma while employing zero certified educators. The job postings said it outright: no teaching certificate required.

The Nonprofit Shell Game

Founded by MacKenzie Price and backed by Joe Liemandt, Alpha operates through nonprofit schools that contract with for-profit vendors tied to the same principals. That structure allows the organisation to claim a public-purpose mission while channelling money to private interests. The accountability lines are deliberately blurred.

Surveillance as Pedagogy

Students who stop making progress on their laptops trigger an automated alert, and the system photographs them. This is presented as engagement monitoring, but it functions as surveillance. Consent for data collection is buried in enrollment agreements, and reports suggest the student data itself may be insecure.

The Best Case and Its Cracks

Mastery Learning and Tutoring Hype

Alpha cites Bloom's two-sigma tutoring effect as proof that its model works. In theory, one-to-one tutoring produces dramatic gains. In practice, an AI platform is not a human tutor, and Alpha has published no peer-reviewed evaluation of its outcomes. The selection effects alone, families paying $40,000, make raw score comparisons meaningless.

Claims Without Proof

Alpha has made bold claims about student performance without providing verifiable evidence. No independent audit. No peer-reviewed study. No longitudinal data. Just self-reported numbers from a platform with a financial interest in looking effective.

Agency Allocation and Deprofessionalisation

Who Decides, Who Trusts

This episode applies an "agency allocation" lens: where does decision authority actually sit? In Alpha's model, it concentrates in a proprietary platform. Teachers lose formative judgment. Parents lose professional oversight. Students lose relationships with trusted adults. The platform decides what to teach, how fast, and whether you are paying attention.

Who Gets Excluded

Students with IEPs and 504 plans, those most dependent on trained professionals, are effectively excluded from Alpha's model. The AI platform is not designed for neurodivergent learners, behavioural intervention plans, or the kind of individualised support that certified special educators provide. Deprofessionalisation does not affect all families equally.