‘What if I told you this school had no teachers?’: Is AI schooling the future of education — or a risky bet?

By Sunlen Serfaty, Linda Gaudino, Nicky Robertson, CNN

(CNN) — Chatty, bright-eyed children surrounded US Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon as she walked with them through an airy building in Texas.

Part of a 50-state tour, this stop last year was at an unusual institution: the Austin campus of Alpha, a chain of private schools that educates students from grades K-12 using AI to speed-teach core academic subjects in just two hours a day.

They emphasize learning through AI rather than human teachers. There’s no homework and no textbooks — just software that students use each morning to learn, with human “guides” for motivation and classroom support.

A typical day starts just before 9 a.m. with a group activity that introduces a life skill to be taught during the day.

Students then sit down in front of laptops, plug in headsets or even virtual reality sets, and learn academics through an AI tutor. The two-hour curriculum includes four 30-minute sessions in math, science, social studies and language, and 20 minutes of additional learning concepts, like test taking skills.

The rest of the day is spent on workshops such as financial literacy, communication or problem solving.

“There is so much to do, so much opportunity that I’m just seeing here,” McMahon declared during her visit, at a roundtable with students and MacKenzie Price, one of Alpha’s founders and its public face.

Much has been made of the promise of artificial intelligence for every facet of life, and education is no exception.

The Trump administration has said that it wants to pioneer new uses of AI in schools, and McMahon has held up Alpha, whose network spans over a dozen locations across the US, as an exemplar of where education should be headed.

Founded with the backing of a tech billionaire in Austin in 2014, Alpha’s rise has coincided with technological leaps in what artificial intelligence can do. At the same time, the US education system is undergoing serious disruptions and challenges — the latest national assessments of student achievement show scores in math and reading continuing to fall, part of a decadelong slide.

Amid this, parents across the country are seeking out alternatives to traditional public schools.

With AI already increasingly common in education — 6 in 10 teachers used an AI tool in the 2024-2025 school year, according to a Walton Family Foundation and Gallup poll — turning to AI-led learning would seem to be one cutting-edge option.

Some parents say their experiences with Alpha have lived up to the promise of providing a new, exciting and better education for their children. The personalized pace of teaching, practical skills and incentives were among some of the bright spots they praised.

But for some parents who embraced Alpha in the past, the unusual and little-tested form of schooling proved problematic. The second school Alpha opened, in Brownsville, Texas, faced serious questions from some of the parents who sent their children there in its first years after opening in 2022.

According to documents and communications from the 2023-2024 school year seen by CNN, some half a dozen families voiced concerns about the efficacy of its teaching model and the anxiety the school’s culture and AI-set learning targets were placing on their children.

Some students were “so stressed out” and yet the school was “propping them up as, like, the model” and “evidence why Alpha works,” Jessica Lopez, one of the most vocal parents, told CNN this year, when speaking of the experience. She withdrew her two daughters from the school in 2024.

“I realized that the school is not the right fit for us,” she wrote to Price at the time, noting issues such as the reliance on apps as sole teachers, lack of support for students from human teachers and punishing hours children were keeping in order to keep up with AI-set metrics as points of contention she and other parents had raised.

Alpha has denied any link between its schools and anxiety and noted the Brownsville school has changed from a homeschool-hybrid model that was “confusing and ineffective” and bears “no resemblance to the school model today.”

“The entire school experience, pedagogy and approach to learning have transformed dramatically,” including its apps, goals, workshops and other parts of the school system, the company said. “There is no accurate or fair way” to hold the Brownsville experience from those early years “as representative of the current Alpha student or school experience,” the school said, adding that Alpha now has many families across all of its campuses who have positive experiences.

More broadly today, though, experts say there is little outside scrutiny of Alpha’s model and how successful it really is at teaching children.

“What has been a big concern amongst scholars and researchers is that Alpha is refusing to allow for any independent research to evaluate the claims or to really scrutinize what’s going on from disinterested parties,” said Victor Lee, an associate professor at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education.

“That sort of behavior sort of implies there’s something to hide,” he said, adding that he found some of Alpha’s claims of success “dubious.”

And while some education experts see promise for AI, others fear that heavy reliance on AI and computers may leave children without opportunities for socialization and use of their own critical thinking.

In lengthy replies to CNN’s request seeking comment, Alpha defended its methods and results, and insisted that characterizations from critics who spoke to CNN were “false” or “misrepresentative.”

Outside experts who question the school’s transparency and results “are people unfamiliar with Alpha’s approach and it should be presented as such,” the school said. “That is not [a] scientific way to present an accurate depiction of Alpha’s approach to learning.”

The school “has hired world-renowned learning scientists, advanced degreed academic experts and researchers” to assess outcomes and develop its curriculum, and its students “learn two times faster and build better comprehension across all core subject matter,” the company added.

However, Alpha declined several months of requests from CNN reporters to visit its campuses or speak to Price, its co-founder, for this story. (The company told CNN last autumn that they had “paused” non-essential visits as they “fielded 15-20 requests per day from not only media but national and international academic institutions, school leaders around the world” and others, though some media coverage has surfaced since then.)

A spokesperson for the Department of Education said: “Alpha School is reimagining K–12 education by equipping students with practical AI skills and preparing them for a rapidly evolving technology-driven workforce.”

“While this approach may not be right for every family, it has proven transformative for many, prompting Secretary McMahon’s visit in a state that has invested significantly in school choice and innovation in the classroom.”

A new way of learning

Alpha bills itself as an alternative model for education, with a twist.

“What if I told you this school has no teachers, and students learn academics through an AI tutor, on AI apps that give each students a one-to-one personalized mastery-based academic journey that guarantees success,” Price says in a 2024 promotional video.

Alpha was co-founded by Price, a Stanford graduate and education entrepreneur, and technology billionaire Joe Liemandt, founder of Trilogy Software and private equity firm ESW Capital.

Since opening its doors to a few dozen students in Austin, Alpha has expanded to major cities like Miami and San Francisco, as well as smaller cities and towns like Brownsville and, more recently, Chantilly, Virginia. Some of its campuses are selective to focus on sports or high academic achievers.

CNN attended a prospective parent information session in Chantilly where Alpha leadership described its teaching model, as well as some of the projects students have engaged in, including second graders running 5Ks and third graders competing in triathlons.

The schools can come with a hefty price tag, with tuition ranging from $10,000 to $75,000 a year, depending on location.

Jennifer Gabler, a Brownsville midwife and former math teacher, says that her children — aged 7, 11, and 13 — have thrived at Alpha since they enrolled in March 2023, after previously being homeschooled.

Her youngest rapidly improved her reading skills, Gabler said, telling CNN: “She went from zero to 100 in four or five weeks, and she loved it. … She would come home, and they don’t have to do homework, but she would come home and voluntarily do it because she was so excited to learn.”

Alpha motivates students by offering the children “incentives,” which they are either given or asked to propose as rewards for performing well. Students’ progress is tracked through Alpha’s online platform on a daily basis, and these metrics are used to measure performance.

Gabler has seen incentives ranging from hosting a pajama and movie day, stopping by the local cafe or spending a day at the trampoline park. But they have also included more lavish prizes like money or even funding for overseas field trips.

Local and international trips are sometimes covered by tuition and at other times paid for out-of-pocket by parents. Gabler’s two oldest children have taken excursions to Italy and Switzerland, and to a Formula One qualifying event in Austin after Alpha students competed in a computer coding challenge to recreate the F1 racetrack.

Adults in the room who oversee the students during their two-hour learning sessions and lead the life-skills workshops are known as “guides” rather than teachers. Alpha told CNN children have access to human teachers for handwriting, reading specialists and specialists for diverse learners, who are credentialed in those areas. According to Alpha, the two hours of AI learning is on par with the amount of screen time US students in traditional schools get across a day.

According to job postings for guide roles — which can pay up to six figures a year — the guide “won’t grade papers or follow a curriculum.” Instead, “you’ll lead workshops, ignite curiosity, and prove that learning knows no bounds when students own their education.”

Guides are not required to have post-graduate or education degrees — only a bachelor’s in any field is required — and can have varying amounts of experience with children or education, depending on the role.

Two former guides told CNN that non-disclosure agreements were part of their employment contract with Alpha, which the school says are used to protect proprietary information.

One of the guides, who CNN agreed not to name because they signed an NDA, described a relaxed, informal environment with no classrooms. Kids wouldn’t sit at desks but would work in common spaces. Some would lay on the ground and kick their feet in the air.

“It felt more like I was working at a startup than a school,” the former guide said.

Gabler said she appreciated the way Alpha is “always kind of trying to change and improve things, and so the children have learned to be very flexible.”

“I would say there have been several learning curves because Alpha is not a static school,” she said. “I think it’s challenging for children when things suddenly change, but it’s a great life skill for them to learn the sort of resilience to that sudden changing.”

But she noted areas for improvement. Though she likes the guide system, she said “there is still a place for that teacher who understands, you know, the material that’s been covered” to jump in to assist when needed, she said.

When a student is struggling with a lesson, the guide is there to encourage the child to figure it out on their own, oftentimes through YouTube links or Google searches, but, according to Gabler, no teaching from the guides takes place. “Alpha has a very strong policy that they will have zero teaching from their staff. They really don’t want the teachers to actually teach the academics at all,” Gabler said.

Gabler, whose children continue to attend the Brownsville school, says she has noticed improvements to the AI apps last year that she felt helped cut down on stress.

The school has worked well for her family, Gabler said, but she added: “I know it’s not for every single family.”

A dose of skepticism

Alpha says that its approach to academics is successful, claiming its students learn twice as fast as their peers at schools across the country. It backs the claim by measuring results against a national test, the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test, which tracks knowledge acquisition across subjects by grade level.

A report Alpha provided to CNN measuring its students from fall 2024 to spring 2025 shows the schools’ students outperformed their peers nationally on subjects like math, science and reading over grades K-12.

However, Justin Reich, the director of the Teaching Systems Lab at MIT, questioned whether the tests were an appropriate measure for Alpha’s success, pointing out that MAP is “not primarily used by students going to schools that cost $40,000 a year,” but public schools across the country.

“It’s sort of strange to be comparing [Alpha’s] students to students from a wide variety of very challenging circumstances, rather than comparing their students to other students in elite private schools,” Reich said.

Reich, a former middle school teacher, expressed skepticism of the hyper-individualized learning method being used by Alpha.

Some of the most important learning experiences for children come from communal moments in the classroom, he said.

“I think if you ask most people about the kinds of experiences that they have in schools that meant the most to them, they are more orchestral than individual,” he said. “The most powerful moments are these collaborative moments.”

“What kinds of neighborhoods will we have if each kid is trained to optimize their own individual, you know, accomplishments? Would you want to live in that town or would you want to live in a town where we come together to build community, to learn together, to explore together?” Reich asked.

The advocates Alpha has attracted include billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, a supporter of President Donald Trump, who has called Alpha a “breakthrough innovation in K-12 education,” and Trump’s Department of Education secretary. This month, first lady First Lady Melania Trump delivered remarks at a virtual event on “how artificial intelligence can be used responsibly, creatively, and confidently,” that also featured an Alpha student as a speaker.

Elon Musk has reposted favorable press coverage on X, and, according to a 2024 promotional video, half of the students who attended the Alpha school in Brownsville were children of SpaceX employees. The city is not far from the site of Musk’s ‘Starbase’ facility and launch development site.

Lee, the Stanford education expert, says the Alpha model represents a desire for schools to try different approaches. AI does have a role to play in education, but, he said, “I’m really hesitant for Alpha school to be the sort of mascot of AI and education.”

“I think it’s a narrow view of what the potential is for AI and the classroom,” he said.

Besides expanding its private schools, Alpha has also attempted to gain some footholds in public education through a public-charter network called Unbound Academy, which offers a virtual version of its school, completely online.

In 2024, Arizona became the first state to approve Unbound, marking its — and by affiliation, Alpha’s — first foray into public schools.

But Alpha’s applications for charter-school status have been rejected by several states, including Arkansas, Norh Carolina, Utah, South Carolina and Pennsylvania.

The Pennsylvania Department of Education, in denying its application, pointed to the lack of teachers and concern about the model being largely untested.

“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 department said.

‘For a group that sells perfection, this is less than perfect’

Lee, the Stanford education expert, noted that there are real concerns about using AI in situations that present risks for some children. “There’s a concern that what works in one context, we don’t know if it works in another context,” he said.

The move to Alpha’s school in Brownsville in 2022 was supposed to be a positive one for Jessica Lopez’s two daughters — and a chance for her older daughter, who is autistic and had always excelled academically, to reach new academic heights. The fact that students could learn at their own pace and have specialized lessons seemed like an appealing model for her needs, Lopez said.

But Lopez said she almost immediately noticed a change in both her girls after they started at Alpha. Although on paper, they met their academic targets, their attitude shifted from curiosity about knowledge to extreme focus on metrics.

In a 2023 town hall with parents and Alpha employees seen by CNN, several parents expressed their concern with how the daily data-driven metrics seemed to supersede learning. Some children were staying up late into the night or logging extra hours on their apps to boost their metrics, sometimes leading to anxiety and tears, some parents said.

After their second year, Lopez decided to withdraw her children and enroll them in public school, where she says she discovered that the girls had fallen behind.

“They were doing what the school wanted them to do. In the end, it really wasn’t out of joy,” Lopez said, adding that she felt that, by the end of their time at Alpha, her children had turned “zombie-like.”

Several families left Alpha Brownsville around the time of the Lopez children’s departure.

While they were sending their children to Alpha, some of the parents formed a support group to share troubling experiences. In text messages from the group seen by CNN, some suggested their children were being pressured to engage in school activities they didn’t want to do, under the guise of building grit and testing their limits. The parents discussed the stress their children were exhibiting related to the school.

A spokesperson for the school said Alpha’s personalized learning model is designed to fix learning gaps developed in traditional schools. “No credible person who studies Alpha’s model first hand would say that foundational concepts are lost at Alpha,” she said.

Families that chose to leave the Brownsville school around the same time as the Lopez did so because it “no longer aligned with their preferences,” the spokesperson added, noting that the school has grown exponentially since then.

“My biggest complaint is — just be honest about what it is,” said Lopez. “There’s no perfect system, and for a group that sells perfection, this is less than perfect.”

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