Yet another expensive high-tech school opening in NYC - now with the promise of AI learning

Wow. A branch of the Alpha school is opening up as K-8 private school in downtown NYC at 180 Maiden Lane in the fall in which students will be taught academic subjects for only two  hours per day via an AI platform at a cost of $65K; what a bargain! 

More on this teacher-less chain of schools, founded by a MacKenzie Price, a Texas businesswoman with no previous experience in education, who claims that her model will  "ensure mastery of the material 2-5x faster than traditional method".  Peter Greene reported on this woman and her chain of schools when she applied to open up a cyber online charter school, called Unbound Academic Institute Charter School, in Pennsylvania. 

The Pennsylvania Department of Education wisely rejected the school, explaining that "the school received no letters of support, was not insured in any capacity, and pointed to issues relating to how the school’s address in Lancaster, a coworking space, lacked certain facility requirements."

The rejection letter also pointed out that "The artificial intelligence instructional 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,” an understatement if I've ever heard one.

As Fred Aebli, a professor at Penn State pointed out, "at the end of it all, teaching is by far one of the most human things that we do, especially in K through 12. They’re (kids are) not just learning reading, writing and arithmetic, they’re learning people skills, and life skills.”  

Perhaps that's why the proposed daily schedule for the private school in NYC includes an afternoon session devoted to teach "Limitless life skills", such as riding a bike.

But haven't we heard this story before?  Remember the Altschools, just a few years ago?  The much hyped, high-tech, for-profit private school chain opened with four schools in the Bay Area and in NYC, starting in 2013, and yet closed their doors just a few years later,  after losing as much as $174 million in venture capital funds from Mark Zuckerberg & other tech mavens.  

Or Summit Learning , another multi- million dollar effort by Zuckerberg, that put kids on computers for much of the school day, with inadequate materials and little human teaching.   

After a number of exposes, in the NY Times, the NY Post and elsewhere,  showing a huge amount of student and parent discontent with the program, its founder, Diane Taverner, left Summit for other ventures, and the organization renamed itself "Gradient Learning,"   

In its recent materials, its operators claim that their program is based on "Whole Student teaching," whatever that means,  and that "we've been diligently listening to your feedback and working closely with educators to identify areas to enrich."  How many schools have adopted and stuck with the program, versus the countless number that have abandoned it,  is unclear.

With the rise of AI, however, we should expect the number of schools and programs claiming great results using this technology will only grow.  How much of that will be based on grift and hype, and how much on actual learning will be critical for all of us who care about the future of education to study and carefully dissect.  One thing for sure, the Alpha School won't be a shining exemplar of AI's potential.

Join us next month in Indy to discuss privacy & online learning!

Next month in Indianapolis, the Network for Public Education will be holding our annual conference on Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 20-21. More info and how to register here.

I will be participating in two amazing panels focused on how protect students and teachers from the growing threat to data privacy and resist the the expansion of online learning which is undermining the quality of public education.

The first workshop, to be held on Saturday Oct. 20 morning at 10:50 AM is entitled Outsourcing the classroom to ed tech and machine-learning: why parents & teachers should resist . Presenting with me are two brilliant bloggers and thinkers whose work I never fail to learn from, Audrey Watters and Peter Greene.

Audrey has single-handedly and fiercely taken on the ed tech industry for many years and critiques their claims on her essential blog, Hack Education. If you haven't subscribed to her newsletter, you absolutely should do so. She is currently writing a book to be published by MIT Press called Teaching Machines.

Peter is a Pennsylvania teacher who retired last year, but even while teaching was among the most prolific and incisive education bloggers at Curmudjucation. He also now writes a regular column for Forbes. In his writings, he deconstructs and eviscerates the agenda of the corporate reformers and faux philanthropists, whether it be the promotion of online education, Common Core, high-stakes testing or any of the other snake oil disseminated by private interests bent on disrupting public education. He shows how they are based neither on research, common sense, or the experience of teachers or parents.

During the second workshop, held later the same day, our panel will present A Teacher Data Privacy Toolkit: How to protect your students’ privacy and your own. Marla Kilfoyle and Melissa Tomlinson of the Badass Teachers Association, Rachael Stickland co-chair of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy and I will offer some of the highlights and practical tips of our yet-to-be released Toolkit, the product of a year-long collaboration between the PCSP and the BATs, with support from the Rose Foundation, the NEA and the AFT.

From responses to an online survey and focus groups of teachers, administrators and other school staff, we heard loud and strong how educators were deeply frustrated by the lack of training and knowledge they had about how to minimize and safeguard the increasing amount of personal data being collected by schools and vendors, and how they can work to ensure it isn't breached or improperly used. This toolkit, like the Parent Toolkit for Student Privacy we along with Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood released in 2017, represents an attempt to provide the support and information that teachers need to act as responsible guardians of their students' privacy -- and their own.

Please join us in Indianapolis - more amazing speakers and panels are described here. -- Leonie Haimson

Please join NPE in Raleigh to be inspired and learn so much!

In a few weeks, the Network for Public Education will hold our annual conference in Raleigh NC on
April 16-17. Among the keynote speakers will be Diane Ravitch, Rev. William Barber and author Bob Herbert, Jesse Hagopian, Karran Harper Royal and Dr. Phil Lanoue of Clarke County GA and National Superintendent of the Year.

I will be leading a workshop with the co-chair of our Parent Coalition for Student Privacy Rachael Stickland on the fight for student privacy post-inBloom, and another on "Personalized Learning", contrasting the research and reality of class size reduction vs. online instruction.  Joining me will be teacher/blogger extraordinaire Peter Greene and attorney and columnist Wendy Lecker.

Here is the full schedule of events; click the right hand arrow for Sat. and Sunday and this page to register and get info on how to reserve your hotel room etc. 

I am on the board of NPE, and I'm proud to say it has become the leading national organization of parents, teachers and advocates fighting the forces that undermine our public schools, including high-stakes testing, budget cuts and privatization. Each year the opportunity to meet with like-minded allies and share strategies and information is tremendously helpful and even inspirational.  This year promises to be our best yet.  Please join us if you can!