Alpha School is unconventional, to say the least. The Austin-founded and headquartered private school chain, which has campuses across the country and two in North Texas, has attracted national attention for its new AI-led approach to education. The school, whose hallmark is a two-hour class day taught by an AI program and then a set of life skill-building activities, charges a tuition equivalent to Dallas’ most prestigious private schools. Alpha students will begin learning subjects like financial literacy and brand development in kindergarten.
“The obvious question I get is what do they do with the rest of the day?” says Alpha School founder MacKenzie Price, in a school introductory video. “We do what every parent thinks school should really be about, enabling kids to succeed in the real world by teaching valuable life skills.”
For $40,000 a year, your student can attend a K-8 Alpha School in Fort Worth, and for another $10,000, they can attend the K-3 campus in Plano. They’ll start their morning with a two-hour instructional course taught by AI programming; this is the only time they’ll receive the typical core curriculum that has defined the American education system. Once the reading, writing and arithmetic are out of the way, students spend the rest of their time building on 24 identified life skills through workshops led by what the school calls guides, instead of typical teachers…