Alpha

Now, the apps that Alpha currently uses to teach academics in the morning are okay... but not amazing. Our main role is to change that, significantly. We’re pulling together a team of experienced teachers to build the next generation of Alpha’s apps. We have deep expertise in curriculum, assessment and effective instruction, and care about improving kids’ lives. You can learn more about the initial team here: alpha.school/learning-scienc…

It’s November. Are all of your kindergarteners reading? Darby, a guide at @Alphaschool Spyglass, just Made My Month with this update. It made her month, too… she tackled us when we walked into her classroom! If you’ve done time in K classrooms, you know how exciting this is. 💙📚💙 Darby is one of the guides who joined Alpha after years as a teacher, most recently in Dallas ISD.

Here is a look at what our Learning Science team are building at @Alphaschool where @MrZachG and @DaveVanStory are doing some amazing work on error correction: substack.com/home/post/p-222…

The most valuable thing @Alphaschool taught me is acting with high agency and high urgency. Sophomore year, I got into a long email war with one of Alpha's academic leads. Advanced Placement courses, the college-level classes you can take in high school, took us 80 to 120 hours each. I was sure we could do it in 40. Weeks of back and forth ended with: "You're a kid. I have a Harvard degree." My guide (@em_findley)'s response: "If you really believe you're right, stop arguing and go prove it." Two weeks later, a small team and I launched our own AP courses. In about four weeks, students went from the 35th percentile to the 85th, with under 40 hours of work. Today, I do that academic lead's job, without the Harvard degree (yet). With high agency and high urgency, I didn't need it.

My son just finished his first session at Alpha Miami in 8th. I am jealous every single day! The biggest change I’ve noticed is how he is no longer stressed out from homework, and seems more mature and locked in because he’s in total control of his own journey.💪🏻

She just found out that she has no school all of next week and she’s sad. They truly mean it when they say kids will prefer going to @Alphaschool than taking vacations.

We spent hours tonight @Alphaschool walking through a day in the life of our kids. The number of parents getting humbled as they tried to solve workshop challenges or complete academic lessons was impressive.

The Alpha dashboard was mind blowing during our daughter’s recent alpha summer week. Truly the best ed tech backend tracking system I have ever come across. Easy, intuitive and crystal clear for tracking progress. A+++++

Just moved my daughter to Alpha School. Personalized AI-driven academics delivered in 2 hours per day, leaving the rest of the afternoon for life skills. We’re a few weeks in and she’s already a different kid.

Of the 8 schools we have been a part of thus far, @Alphaschool is the only one that *requests* and implements my critical feedback.

@Alphaschool begins! First day of 4th, 7th, and 8th at Alpha School South Bay LA!

Have you ever gone on a walk with your teacher? At @alphaschool, we have guides whose entire job is to be there for us. Every week, we get a limitless meeting time with them, where we can talk about AlphaX, academics, or just life.

Capitalism is the great equalizer, and that is precisely why it is so dangerous. There is no force in history that has done more for equality: tearing down barriers, weakening caste structures, disrupting feudal power. Tocqueville welcomed this march of equality but also feared its less obvious consequences. Perhaps those aristocratic barriers, structures, and fiefdoms served a function that would now be unfulfilled. He came to America to see the endpoint of this process — the place where commerce and equality had gone further than anywhere else on earth. This June, I led 5 students on a grand tour across the Atlantic to read Democracy in America in the very chateau it was written, to meet the Tocqueville family, and to discuss his insights with technologists and philosophers in the spaces Tocqueville used to host his salons. I chose these 5 students because they are from a school distinctively American in its love of entrepreneurship, @Alphaschool. I wanted to take them through Tocqueville not just to read an old book but to hold up a mirror: so that they can know themselves better, that they can understand the origin, strengths, and limitations of an American, entrepreneurial education. And I wanted to share this seminar with you not only for you to understand Tocqueville’s insights on America and capitalism but to hear how the best and the brightest in the next generation are thinking about technology, inequality, AI, and the future of work.

“I hate school.” That’s something I used to say all the time. Before @AlphaSchool, school wasn’t somewhere I wanted to be. I was constantly going from friend group to friend group trying to find where I fit in, while also dealing with being bullied. There were nights where I would literally cry myself to sleep knowing I had to go back the next day. Eventually, I decided I had enough. That’s where Alpha came in. I came to Alpha in 7th grade, and for the first time, school started becoming somewhere I actually wanted to go. It wasn’t just about changing how I learned academically. I was in an environment where I could work at my own pace, focus on my gaps, build real-life skills, try new things, freely express my thoughts, and actually be known as a person instead of feeling like I was trying to fit myself into a place I didn’t belong. Now I’m starting high school here, and it’s kinda crazy looking back at how much changed. The girl who used to dread going to school is now voluntarily making an X account to document her school experience But I think my favorite part is this: What once made me cry myself to sleep at night is now part of what motivates me to work harder. I know what it feels like to hate where you are. Now I know what it feels like to love where you’re going. And I don’t take that for granted. So I’m curious—what’s one thing you wish you could change about your school experience? Road to 1,000 by Oct. 9 :)

First full week done for my 9yo at @Alphaschool. Every day, he's come home with a tired brain and body. Always a bit sweaty and red-faced from being active for the 2nd half of the day, and eager to talk about his move up the leaderboards and "XP" gains for his core subjects. After his first kung-fu lesson, he came home and did 300 jumping jacks, 25 sit-ups, 50 push-ups and tried to hold his 'horse pose' for 2 minutes. He made it about 30 seconds without moving, ha! After working with the dogs at the animal shelter, he came back and said it was the best day of school he's ever had. And that he has to actually work. "No, actually dad. I will have to actually do work!" He's making friends, loving the attention he gets from his guides, and is bummed he has to miss a couple of days due to a family trip where we're taking him away. It's super early, but I can't wait to see how this plays out.