THE LOOP — Bean bag chairs, soundproof booths and portable whiteboards make Alpha Schools look more like a tech startup than a school. But its biggest break from tradition is not the design: It’s an education model that uses artificial intelligence to teach core subjects while adults in the room serve as “guides,” not teachers.

Alpha Schools, opening this fall in the former GEMS Academy in Lakeshore East, says its AI-driven model can help students learn core academics in just two hours a day, freeing up time for workshops, unique projects and learning various life skills.

Using only software, no textbooks or homework, the classrooms are also purged of traditional teachers and replaced with “guides” who are instructed to motivate students as they complete their virtual lessons.

Alpha boasts that its model helps students excel in learning while gaining a general affection for school. In a 2024-2025 year-end reflection, Alpha founder Mackenzie Price said that in a survey of its 1,000 K-12 students at 13 schools around the United States, 94 percent said they “love school,” with 60 percent saying they would rather go to school than on vacation.

Alpha’s Chicago expansion comes as the school has drawn national attention and scrutiny for its model — and as questions abound about the efficacy of AI-driven instruction.

Alpha Schools will open this fall at 350 E. South Water St. The school will serve 100 students in kindergarten through eighth grade, with plans to expand in the future, Price said in an interview. With tuition of $55,000 a year, it will be one of the most expensive private schools in Chicago.

Alpha describes itself as a full-day private school built around a two-part schedule that includes a morning academic block and afternoon workshops.

On a typical school day, students start with a group activity before diving into two hours of learning core academic subjects — completely taught by the school’s AI platform on a computer. The curriculum combines software developed by the school with licensed third-party educational apps like Khan Academy, Membean, Mentava and MobyMax.

By lunchtime, students ditch their laptops and shift into hands-on workshops focused on life skills, teamwork and project-based learning, Price said. There are breaks built into the schedule and at least one workshop per day that requires kids to be active.

Many of the projects are entrepreneurial in nature; they have included students opening and managing their own food truck, participating in TEDx Youth Talks, creating apps and even managing their own Airbnb.

Unlike traditional schools, Alpha will not have teachers on staff. Instead, there will be adult “guides” who focus on motivation, emotional support and life-skills coaching. If a student is really struggling while learning the core curriculum, Alpha has academic experts who can jump on a virtual call with a student.

Price said she’s hoping to tap into Chicago’s local network of teachers to work as guides with salaries starting at $100,000. The school will have at least 10 staff members to start. Guide candidates must pass a background check and have a bachelor’s degree, although an education degree is not required.

“They’re not required to be subject-matter experts in terms of teaching students, because our AI platform is able to provide that tutoring experience,” Price said.

Price met with prospective students and their families in Chicago this month for a “shadow day” at the school. Attendees could try out Alpha’s approach and take part in collaborative workshops that occur after the core curriculum.

Thirty students are already in the application process for the fall, Price said.

Enrollment at Alpha Schools has grown from about 200 students to over 1,000 at 22 schools in Texas, Florida, California and other states over the past two years, she said.

This fall, Alpha Schools will expand in existing states and also open schools in Puerto Rico, Chicago, Atlanta and North Carolina, bringing its total to more than 35 locations.

The use of AI in education has become more common in recent years. Six in 10 teachers reported using an AI tool in the 2024-25 school year, according to a Walton Family Foundation-Gallup poll of 2,232 K-12 public school teachers in the U.S. But a completely AI-taught curriculum would be new to a vast majority of districts around the country.

At Chicago Public Schools, teachers can use AI in the classroom as long as it follows the district’s guidebook, which allows AI’s use as a supplemental classroom resource to personalize lessons and support student work — but not as the primary mode of education.

Teachers can only use AI tools approved by the district, which also bans the input or upload of confidential student records or other identifying information into AI databases, chat boxes and prompts.

“Chicago Public Schools welcomes the promising innovation of artificial intelligence in teaching and learning, while safeguarding the development of students’ foundational skills and critical thinking,” district spokesperson Mary Ann Fergus said in a statement.

“As students arrive with an inherent understanding of generative AI, District administrators and teachers are working to provide both faculty and students with high-quality, deeply vetted AI tools as well as the implementation of guardrails and policies that help reinforce a rigorous, high-quality education.”

But using AI to replace teacher instruction altogether is a key distinction — and a model that is still largely untested, said Charles Logan, an education researcher at Northwestern’s Center for Responsible Technology, Policy and Public Dialogue.

Logan, a former public school teacher in suburban Winnetka, said existing research on AI learning has found varying results. There is little research on the impact of using AI as the primary method of teaching, he said.

Logan pointed to a peer-reviewed study published in January in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that found that the use of Khan Academy, a popular online tutoring system, was linked to modest math gains in classrooms. However, the study examined the site as a classroom support tool and not the primary mode of teaching.

Additionally, a 2026 Stanford review of more than 800 academic papers found that while evidence shows that AI can help improve students’ performance, the benefits are less clear when students are later asked to work without AI support.

“The research on personalized learning and [AI learning] is mixed at best, and I think the Alpha Schools’ approach to adaptive tutoring is like an open experiment [and] is not supported by critical research,” Logan said.

Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT are known to make mistakes and sometimes fabricate information. But Alpha’s AI tools are different because they do not access the internet or rely on internet-backed search engines, which can produce inaccurate or misleading responses, Alpha Schools spokesperson Anna Davlantes said in an email.

Instead, the tools operate in a closed system trained only on curriculum-aligned materials, she said.

Logan’s skepticism mirrors the argument made by MIT researcher Justin Reich in his book “Failure to Disrupt,” which examines how education technology is often initially advertised as transformative even when the evidence to back up those claims is limited.

Still, Alpha Schools said its students learn twice as fast as traditional students — who might spend about an hour a day in each of the four core subjects of reading and language arts, math, science and social studies at a traditional school.

In a video on Alpha’s website, Price describes “two-hour learning” as a school model built around the idea that students can get through key subjects much faster than in a traditional classroom if lessons are personalized and students move on only after showing “mastery.”

Price said the model grew out of Alpha’s effort to break down how long it actually takes its students to learn material when they are working at the right pace.

Alpha shared test results that showed its students scored in the top 1-2 percent on the 2024-2025 Measures of Academic Progress exam, a national test used to measure K-12 academic proficiency. The test includes all students who have been enrolled at Alpha for at least a year, Davlantes said.

Reich told CNN that comparing the results of a small sliver of students whose families can afford the extremely high price tag for Alpha Schools to the general public school population is not an apples-to-apples comparison.

“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.

To date, Alpha School has faced difficulty in its quest to claim a stake in public education. The school has applied for charter school status in public school districts across several states. It was approved in Arizona but rejected in Arkansas, North Carolina, Utah, South Carolina and Pennsylvania, CNN reported.

In its rejection, the Pennsylvania Department of Education said the “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.”

That skepticism is shared by Ebony DeBerry, an elected member of the Board of Education for CPS representing the 2nd District on the Far North Side. DeBerry, a community organizer and former CPS teacher, said while she isn’t familiar enough with Alpha School’s model to completely dismiss it, the idea of using AI to teach the core curriculum makes her “very nervous.”

“Humans are flawed and technology is flawed,” DeBerry said.

DeBerry is against getting rid of traditional teachers in the classroom, saying it’s important to have someone who knows the curriculum in the event of a technology malfunction. She also said teachers are vital in helping students develop problem-solving skills and providing emotional support.

In the end, “time will tell us if there is a thirst for this type of educational system,” she said.

For Logan, the question for families should go beyond test scores and academic claims to privacy rights and student autonomy. Among his concerns is how students’ eye movements are tracked while students learn on Alpha computers, as well as how the school keeps tabs on other metrics such as keyboard use and the time students take between answering questions.

Logan said it’s up to parents to determine whether the potential “cost” such a model will have on their child’s development is worth it.

“What autonomy is the child giving up by having to submit to constant surveillance?” Logan said. “What is the psychological impact of having every move you make … converted by this private school to be used in ways that mostly benefit the private school?”

Price said the data collected from students is used only for educational purposes and is not sold, shared or monetized, with access limited to “staff supporting the student’s learning plan.”

“Families are given clear disclosures on how it’s used at the beginning of every school year and have the ability to turn off tracking outside school hours,” Price said in an email.

Alpha’s growing profile has put the school on the radar of the administration of President Donald Trump, who signed an executive order pushing AI in K-12 schools in April.

At the time, Price called on parents and teachers to “embrace this change.”

“This isn’t a scary mandate. It’s long-overdue momentum. I’ve seen the future, and it isn’t 10 years away. It’s here, right now,” she wrote in a LinkedIn post praising the move.

In November, U.S. Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon visited Alpha’s Austin, Texas campus and praised the school as “exemplary,” saying AI will be critical to expanding opportunity for students and preparing them for the workforce. An Alpha student from the campus was invited by first lady Melania Trump to her husband’s State of the Union address, in which he spotlighted how AI is being used in the classroom.

Price, a strong supporter of school choice, has donated more than $2 million since 2023 to Republican candidates and political action committees that support it, according to The Washington Post.

The school’s increased presence also comes as the Trump administration has taken a confrontational approach toward public schools and teachers in Democratic cities like Chicago. Federal officials have threatened funding over policies promoting DEI and launched an investigation into CPS’ Black Student Success Plan, deepening tensions with city and state leaders who have strongly pushed back.

Despite the conservative embrace of Alpha School’s model and the potential for its growth in Illinois, Democrat Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former CPS teacher whose candidacy was backed by the Chicago Teachers Union, declined to comment on its arrival in Chicago. The CTU also declined to comment.

For her part, Price rejected the notion that Alpha School is aligned with the Trump administration, calling her organization “politically agnostic.”

Price acknowledged the tension between public and private education but also stressed that families should have the ability to find a model of schooling that works for their child.

“We are working just to provide another option for families that are excited about rigorous academics delivered in a shorter period of time, and that focus of life skills, and [the] ability to really connect with our guides throughout the day,” Price said.

Alpha Schools will host another shadow day in Chicago April 22.

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