ACX runs an essay contest every year, not revealing the authors until after the judging. This entry reviews "Alpha School," this year's magic educational fix. He seems both as skeptical as we would be, except he has tried it out on his own children. He faults the program for not describing what they are doing quite accurately. He worries that it will not scale up, as other methods have not. It is not only 2 hours a day. It is not teacher-free. It does not use AI. However...
…Yet the core claim survives: Since they started in October my children have been marching through and mastering material roughly three times faster than their age‑matched peers (and their own speed prior to the program). I am NOT convinced that an Alpha-like program would work for every child, but I expect, for roughly 30-70% of children it could radically change how fast they learn, and dramatically change their lives and potential.
That would be worth studying with more effort than a lot of things we are studying about education now.
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