Reimagining school: How MacKenzie Price is disrupting education with Alpha School's groundbreaking learning model
The comment felt like a 'gut punch' to the mom of two and conjured up memories of her own childhood as a kid who hated school.
At the same time, her children's experiences in the Austin, Texas, public school system had given her a firsthand look at the lack of personalization in the classroom. The model of a teacher standing in front of a group of 20 students and delivering instructions to all of them in the same way, regardless of how each child learned, didn't seem like the best way to get kids to excel.
'I saw the path my girls were on and couldn't see them spending the next several years of their lives playing that game,' Price said. 'It's a model problem. The teacher in front of the classroom is an inefficient way to learn.'
Creating a new model for education
Price likens the traditional six-hour school day to using a dial phone in the age of smartphones. Education, she thought, needed a revolution.
That led her to create the '2-Hour Learning model' to empower students to focus on core academics in just two hours a day, freeing up the rest of the school day for them to work with their guides to pursue their passions and master life skills.
Her vision became a reality with the launch of the first Alpha School in Austin in 2014. The private school network has since grown to eight locations, including one in South Miami-Dade at 8000 S.W. 56th St., which opened in August 2024. Ten more schools are expected to open this year, including in West Palm Beach.
'South Florida is a vibrant and growing area, and we're answering the call from families who want to have a new educational model that's more innovative in its approach,' Price said. 'When you combine the people who are native to the area with the many people who are moving here, there's a ton of intellectual vibrancy in South Florida.'
The first Alpha School in Miami started with six students. This August, more than 60 will study there.
Alex Kiser, the head of school for Alpha Miami, said in a recent Instagram video, that she was drawn to the school by a combination of two things she came to love during her time working at Google — innovation and experimentation.
'We have taken your traditional school day and shrunk it to two hours,' Kiser said. 'That leaves a lot of time to create exciting, engaging workshops for students.'
An AI-powered model
Alpha School, which received its accreditation from the nonprofit Cognia, was founded on three commitments.
Kids will love school — Alpha's leaders believe that when engagement meets high standards, it nurtures a lifelong passion for learning. Guides, not teachers, make every student feel valued and motivated.
Learn 2X in two hours — Through advanced technologies and mastery-based learning, students complete core subjects in just two hours daily. Alpha combines adaptive artificial intelligence (AI) for personalized one-to-one learning, mastery-based methods for deep understanding and time management techniques like Pomodoro to keep students focused and thriving.
Life skills for the future — By focusing on more than just academics, Alpha prepares students for life by teaching essential, actionable skills. This happens via workshops that focus on public speaking, coding, entrepreneurship, outdoor education and financial literacy to build grit, creativity and adaptability.
Marrying life skills to future-ready students will ensure they are ready for what they'll encounter when they enter the job market, Price said. AI is changing the state of work and transforming roles. Alpha students are trained on different AI tools to give them AI superpowers, and they've used the technology to develop film projects, land rovers and creative arts.
Gauging success
When comparing students' test scores to other students in a specific group, Alpha has achieved remarkable results. Students have advanced from the 31st percentile to the 86th percentile within one year, and on average, Alpha students are in the 90th percentile compared to their peers nationwide.
'The reason our model is so successful is that we have transformed the role of the teacher,' Price said. 'Instead of focusing on lesson plans and lectures, our guides are focused on motivational and emotional support and mentorship. They know every kid and what motivates them. They run our workshops in the afternoon and get to help them build these critical life skills. They're helping us create confident, capable and independent learners.'
That includes a group of fifth and sixth grade students who, as part of their life skills education, started their own food truck business. They had to learn how to put together a budget, shop for and cook food, purchase supplies and a food trailer, secure necessary permitting and market the business. They also learned to work as a team of line cooks and order takers.
Over one summer, after serving breakfast foods at car dealerships and different events around town, they also learned how to calculate a net profit of $4,000.
https://alpha.school.
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