Texas’ Alpha school combines AI with content mastery and innovative approaches to motivating students. It could be a model worth studying.
I spend my time looking at ways to improve public schools. So why have I been fascinated by a private school charging $40,000 a year in tuition?
The AI-fueled Alpha program claims its students grow academically more than twice as fast as the national average, with only two hours of learning per day. Initially, I was skeptical. But after I read a parent review and a profile of school founder Mackenzie Price and principal Joe Liemandt, and listened to Liemandt on podcasts, I was intrigued both as a parent and as an education policy wonk.
Alpha started as a small private school in Austin, Texas, in 2014 but now operates a growing network of 18 locations. Its AI tools are also in use in specialized gifted and talented programs, sports academies and a Montessori-like elementary school. As the network grew, it drew the attention of Liemandt, an Austin tech billionaire, who not only decided to send his kids there but stepped away from the industry, became the school’s leader and now says he plans to spend $1 billion to transform education.
How? Mainly through its technology-enabled, personalized “two-hour learning” model. Alpha points to NWEA MAP Growth gains that are, on average, 2.6 times as large as other similarly scoring students make. In 2024-25 for example, the main Alpha campus had, depending on the grade level, 67% to 90% of students meeting their growth targets in math and 65% to 100% of students meeting their targets in English.