Yuyun Lusiyani
Alpha School, an ambitious network of private educational campuses championing an artificial intelligence-led teaching model, has dramatically expanded its footprint in Texas, quadrupling its number of private schools within a year. This rapid growth, heavily subsidized by state taxpayer funds through a newly enacted voucher program, follows a string of rejections from state education boards across the country, including Texas, that deemed its innovative educational approach "untested" and "experimental" for public charter schools. The trajectory highlights a strategic pivot by Alpha School’s leadership, who, after failing to secure approval for public charter status, successfully lobbied and made significant political donations to facilitate the passage of a private school voucher initiative in Texas, ultimately enabling them to access public funds through a less stringent regulatory pathway.
The Alpha Model: Innovation Meets Skepticism
At the heart of Alpha School’s philosophy is its "2 Hour Learning" model, which posits that students can achieve academic excellence in core subjects like reading and mathematics in just two hours daily, facilitated primarily by AI software. Human educators, referred to as "guides," are tasked with providing motivational support and emotional guidance rather than direct instruction. The network’s tagline, "School is broken, and we’re here to fix it," encapsulates its revolutionary aspirations, aiming to disrupt traditional educational paradigms. Co-founder MacKenzie Price initiated the school in 2014, driven by a desire for a more personalized learning environment for her own child. The vision received a significant boost four years ago with a reported $1 billion investment from tech mogul Joe Liemandt, fueling an ambitious goal to reach a billion students globally. This vision has also garnered attention from high-profile figures such as billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman and Elon Musk, whose Starlink internet service is slated to support Alpha’s global expansion.
Despite its bold claims and high-profile backing, Alpha School’s model has consistently faced skepticism from state education officials and experts. The core concerns revolve around the limited instructional hours, the reduced role of certified teachers, and the unproven efficacy of the AI-led platform across diverse student populations. Critics questioned whether a two-hour academic day could adequately cover state-mandated curricula and whether human teachers, acting primarily as "life coaches," could fulfill the comprehensive responsibilities of traditional educators.
A String of Rejections: The Charter School Hurdle
Over the past two years, Alpha School embarked on a nationwide campaign to establish publicly funded charter schools, applying in at least 10 states by spring. However, the path was fraught with rejections. Officials in North Carolina, for instance, expressed concerns that two hours of instruction was "not nearly enough" for required subjects. In Utah, an education official worried that Alpha’s "guides" might be more akin to "life coaches" than qualified teachers. Even the Texas State Board of Education, known for approving the majority of charter applications over the last decade, rejected Alpha’s proposal in the summer of 2024. Keven Ellis, a Republican board member in Texas, voiced skepticism regarding Alpha’s claims of "massive improvements in student academic outcomes over short periods of time." By March 2025, according to an Instagram post from MacKenzie Price, only Arizona had approved an Alpha-affiliated charter.
A comprehensive review of applications, interviews, and written feedback from six states (Texas, Arizona, Arkansas, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Utah) confirmed a consistent pattern of concerns among charter leaders. These included:
- Teacher Role Redefinition: Widespread apprehension about the diminished role of certified educators, with AI taking the instructional lead.
- Insufficient Learning Time: Doubts that students could master required lessons within a mere two hours daily.
- Curriculum Alignment: Questions about whether Alpha’s courses met individual state curriculum standards, with Alpha leaders in Utah admitting they had not fully checked standards before applying.
- Enrollment Projections and Community Support: Criticism over aggressive enrollment projections year after year, often based on limited community outreach or surveys of Price’s social media followers.
- Conflict of Interest: At least two state education boards raised concerns about MacKenzie and Andy Price serving on the charter’s oversight board while their companies simultaneously received payments for providing the learning platform. Despite promises to rectify this, board meeting minutes as recently as June 2026 indicated their continued presence on the Arizona board.
- Untested Model for Diverse Populations: A primary concern was the lack of evidence that Alpha’s model, primarily tested on affluent students or scholarship recipients, would be effective for students with academic challenges, special education needs, or English language learners. Alpha’s applications mentioned integrating language apps like Duolingo for English learners, but without comprehensive data.
The Texas Pivot: Political Influence and Voucher Success
Following these widespread rejections, particularly the one from the Texas State Board of Education, Alpha School’s strategy shifted. MacKenzie Price, in a social media post months after the Texas rejection, lamented, "Unfortunately, change is hard." What was not publicly disclosed at the time was the extensive lobbying and financial contributions made by Price and her husband, Andy, to influence Texas education policy.
Before and after the program’s approval, the Prices donated over $2 million to Texas legislators and political action committees instrumental in passing and overseeing the state’s controversial inaugural voucher initiative. This program, designed to award tax dollars for select students’ homeschooling or private school tuition, offered Alpha School a direct route to public funding, bypassing the very state education board that had previously rejected its model.
Just one year after its charter application was denied, Alpha School has seen a dramatic expansion in Texas. ProPublica and The Texas Tribune investigation revealed that Alpha has roughly quadrupled its private schools in the state, establishing more than 30 virtual and in-person campuses. The vast majority of these new campuses have been accepted into the new voucher program, positioning Alpha as one of the largest private school chains to benefit from the initiative.
Democratic State Board of Education member Tiffany Clark, who voted against Alpha’s charter application, criticized this maneuver, stating, "They took a backdoor approach. They said, ‘You know what, we can’t get in as a charter, but we can continue to be a private school and take these funds.’"
Voucher Programs: A New Pathway with Less Scrutiny
Texas and Arizona appear to be the initial states where Alpha’s campuses have successfully integrated into school choice programs, though eligibility may extend to other states where Alpha operates its now 17 campuses across the country and in Puerto Rico. The rapid proliferation of private schools alongside the growth of state voucher programs is a national trend, as ProPublica previously reported in July. This trend has raised concerns about limited oversight, with taxpayer dollars sometimes flowing to institutions with questionable leadership or histories of misuse.
In Texas, despite promises of "strong guardrails" for its new voucher program, Alpha School’s acceptance highlights the limitations of these standards. Unlike the rigorous application process for charter schools overseen by the state education board, Alpha’s private schools applied to the Texas Comptroller’s office – the state’s chief financial officer – which was designated to administer the voucher program. The comptroller’s criteria were significantly less stringent, requiring only that a school:
- Operates in Texas.
- Is accredited by an approved organization.
- Has been in operation for at least two years.
- Administers annual standardized tests.
Crucially, none of Alpha’s private schools were required to meet state curriculum standards or demonstrate how their model would ensure student success. The concerns raised by the Texas State Board of Education regarding Alpha’s academic claims, test scores, or AI-led instruction were deemed "not relevant" by Travis Pillow, a spokesperson for the voucher program, who stated, "Our role is to make sure that a school meets the requirements in the law." This distinction effectively allowed Alpha to bypass the very scrutiny that led to its initial rejection.
Scrutiny of Academic Claims and Outcomes
Despite Alpha School’s confident assertions of drastically improved student outcomes, with claims that their students rank in the top 1% to 2% nationally, education experts remain highly skeptical. ProPublica and The Texas Tribune interviewed five such experts who pointed out that private schools are not typically required to disclose internal data, allowing them to selectively present positive examples.
The newsrooms investigated Alpha’s outcomes in more diverse settings, including a previously unreported partnership with Texas Preparatory School, an Austin charter facing potential state closure due to low test scores and financial audits. An Alpha leader informed Texas education officials in May 2025 that implementing their two-hour learning platform had transformed outcomes, with 50% to 60% of students now passing state exams, up from a majority failing. However, test results published by the Texas Education Agency contradict these claims. Experts reviewing the data found that student performance might have worsened post-Alpha involvement. The percentage of students achieving "approaches grade level" (the lowest passing category) only slightly increased from 19% to 21%, while the proportion of students at their actual grade level plummeted from 10% to zero. Texas Preparatory School ultimately received its third consecutive "F" rating, largely based on scores obtained during the Alpha partnership, leading to its permanent closure. "I don’t see the extreme growth," noted Toni Templeton, a research scientist at the University of Houston Education Research Center. "If you’re such a high-performing school, you should have no problem demonstrating it."
Alpha leaders also cited their private school campus in Brownsville, a predominantly Latino city in South Texas, as a success story, asserting that students in one of the nation’s poorest districts excelled with their AI program. MacKenzie Price claimed the model offered the "most kind of equitable answer to the problem of education." Yet, reports from Wired and CNN have documented families leaving the Brownsville school due to students falling behind academically or developing anxiety. While Alpha vehemently denied these findings, citing "inaccurate reporting" and "potentially defamatory representations," they declined to share the documentation that purportedly contradicted these claims, citing privacy concerns.
Furthermore, experts who reviewed Alpha’s self-published Brownsville student outcome data found it lacked detailed test scores to substantiate widespread academic growth. Jennifer Steele, an education professor at American University, observed inconsistencies, noting that Alpha’s reported mastery jumps from 30% to 80% were shown only for second graders, potentially not representative of the entire school. Steele concluded, "The bottom line is that if you desperately want your child to drill on screens two hours a day and you are prepared to pay a lot of money for that, you might have the kind of child who will test well after doing so… But as a scalable model for public schools – even public charter schools – there is no evidence that it works."
Even in Arizona, the only state to approve an Alpha charter, preliminary state test scores presented to the charter school’s oversight board indicated significant shortfalls. Alpha had projected 65% of students would test proficient in English after the first year; only 28% did. For math, a projected 60% proficiency fell to just 10%.
The Vision and the Funding: A Billion-Dollar Ambition
Alpha School’s rapid expansion is underpinned by a global ambition and substantial financial backing. Co-founder MacKenzie Price has stated her mission to revolutionize education by allowing students to learn at their own pace. The reported $1 billion investment from tech mogul Joe Liemandt has been pivotal in transforming Alpha into a sprawling education company with a rapidly growing national and international profile. The company’s expansion strategy includes diverse campus types, from 13 "sports academies" to options for gamers or nature enthusiasts. A high school in New York challenges students to launch million-dollar businesses, promising tuition refunds if they fail. Other programs involve students spending a year abroad, assisting in the establishment of new Alpha schools in Kenya and Ecuador.
Political Donations: Fueling the "School Choice" Movement
The expansion has been closely tied to intensified efforts to cultivate support from public officials, particularly those advocating for voucher programs. In 2023, an LLC called "Future of Education," sharing the Prices’ Austin home address, donated $1 million to a campaign committee linked to then-Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a prominent school choice advocate. In Texas, Andy Price contributed over $250,000 to a political action committee supporting pro-voucher candidates. MacKenzie Price donated $10,000 to Republican Rep. Brad Buckley, who championed the Texas voucher bill, and significant sums ($200,000 to Kelly Hancock and $100,000 to Don Huffines) to leaders whose offices would oversee the state’s voucher program. Her largest contribution in Texas, exceeding $1.5 million over three years, went to Governor Greg Abbott’s main fundraising committee, a key proponent of the state’s voucher initiative.
This political engagement culminated in Alpha receiving a mention in a September 2025 press release from Governor Abbott’s office after a visit from U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who toured an Alpha campus in Austin. The release highlighted "the innovation of Texas schools using artificial intelligence as a beneficial tool." Notably, Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath, who often aligns with the state board, had supported Alpha’s charter proposal despite its rejection by the board two months prior, a decision he lacked the authority to override.
Divergent Views within Texas Leadership
The strategic shift and subsequent expansion have exposed ideological fault lines within Texas’s educational leadership. State board member Julie Pickren, a Republican who had voted in favor of Alpha’s Texas charter, expressed enthusiasm for Alpha’s inclusion in the voucher program, viewing it as a promising solution for individualized learning, especially in struggling districts. "I would say thank you to them," Pickren remarked, "Thank you for not giving up and looking for a way to serve children."
Conversely, Republican education board member Evelyn Brooks, who opposed Alpha’s charter proposal, voiced shock at the company’s acceptance into the voucher program and its rapid Texas expansion. "You’re just making money. You’re reproducing a model, regardless of the region, regardless of the state," Brooks asserted, criticizing what she perceives as a profit-driven, standardized approach.
The Franchise Model: Unabated Expansion
Despite ongoing debates and concerns over its efficacy and accountability, Alpha School’s expansion shows no signs of slowing. Last month, the company announced a new school in a Houston suburb, reinforcing Brooks’s observation: "At this point, it’s a franchise." This unabated growth, fueled by public funds accessed through private school voucher programs, raises critical questions about educational oversight, the role of AI in learning, and the future landscape of public and private education in the United States. As Alpha continues to open campuses where its leaders perceive demand, the implications for student outcomes, teacher roles, and taxpayer accountability will undoubtedly remain a central focus for educators, policymakers, and the public alike.
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