Chicago Opens First Teacher-Free School Run by AI Algorithms

Alpha School opened in Chicago on Tuesday, September 8, becoming the city's first private school with no teachers at all. Students cover core subjects, from math to English, in two hours a day using AI-based software, then spend the rest of the day on workshops in entrepreneurship, public speaking and financial literacy.

How Learning Without Teachers Works

The model, which Alpha School founder Mackenzie Price calls "two-hour learning," has a computer guide each student through an individualized learning path, adjusting the pace and difficulty of tasks to their progress. Instead of teachers, classrooms have "guides," adults without formal teaching credentials whose job is to motivate children, provide emotional support and oversee afternoon workshops such as robotics or obstacle courses.

Price argues that the traditional classroom model wastes students' potential because lesson pace is set to the class average rather than to what an individual child can handle. "AI will help us unlock the greatest untapped resource in the world, human potential," said Mackenzie Price, co-founder of Alpha School.

Results and Researchers' Doubts

The network points to Northwest Evaluation Association MAP Growth tests, on which its students reportedly land in the 99th percentile. Parents quoted by American media describe rapid progress, including children jumping two grade levels in reading and math within a few months at the Manhattan campus.

Independent researchers are more cautious about these claims. Victor Lee, a professor at Stanford University, points out that there is no independent research on the real-world effects of Alpha's software-based teaching, and that comparing its students to the general pool of MAP test-takers is methodologically problematic, since the private school draws children from wealthier families. "There's just a lot that teachers do that goes far beyond what even the most advanced language models can handle," Lee said.

Criticism and Political Context

Joe Vukov, a philosophy professor at Loyola University Chicago, worries that a teacher-free model severs the relationships that have always been at the heart of education. Critics also point to the financial barrier posed by tuition of around $55,000 a year, though Alpha says that 40 percent of students at its flagship Texas campus receive financial aid.

You're changing the nature of what learning and education, at their best, have always been - Joe Vukov, philosophy professor, Loyola University Chicago

The story also has a political dimension. Since 2023, Mackenzie Price has donated more than $2 million to Republican candidates and committees supporting school choice. Illinois Federation of Teachers secretary Pankaj Sharma criticized the school, calling it "an exorbitant tuition for a MAGA founder's school with no teachers."

What's Next for Alpha's Model

Despite the criticism, the network is growing fast, opening nearly a dozen more campuses across US cities this school year. US Education Secretary Linda McMahon visited Alpha's flagship Austin campus in September, which some commentators read as a signal of the administration's favorable stance toward AI-based education models and school choice.

For now, Chicago's experiment remains a distant one, but it points to a direction private education could take wherever regulations allow it: AI as the primary teacher, with adults limited to a supporting and mentoring role. Whether these results hold up over the long term, and among a broader group of students than just the wealthy families who can afford the tuition, remains an open question given the lack of independent research into the model's effects.