Saved by ROSE GROSSHANS and
Your Review: Alpha School
- David Disruptor: Tech employee who has moved from the Bay area to Austin. He was nonconformist to even get into tech, and even more non-conformist to leave California
- Arjun Academic: First generation immigrant family from India. Likely also works in tech, or maybe healthcare, or runs a small business. They want their kids to excel academically and
Anonymous ACX Reader • Your Review: Alpha School
Not convincing that this is not self-selection.
A 12th grader scoring a “238” has about the same knowledge as a 5th grader scoring “238”.
Anonymous ACX Reader • Your Review: Alpha School
Wrong! According to another blog I’m saving here.
Roland Fryer, who has done extensive work on what works in incentivizing students, quotes a 2010 Gallup poll that found that only 23% of American parents support the “idea of school districts paying small amount of money to students to, for example, read books, attend school or to get good grades” (76% opposed the idea with only 1% undecided).
Anonymous ACX Reader • Your Review: Alpha School
I’m pretty opposed to this myself, on the basis of SDT findings. I guess the question is whether real-life situations add variables not controlled for in the SDT experiments.
Fryer is the leading researcher in this field, at least in the short term impact of these programs.
Anonymous ACX Reader • Your Review: Alpha School
The fact that he may have been the only one to try such a thing in no way qualifies him as leading researcher. Especially in light of SDT findings.
The school’s “100% Money Back guarantee” is that every student who attends will be in the top 1% academically and win at least one national academic competition (for kids who start in kindergarten they guarantee 1350+ SAT and 5s on APs by 8th grade).
Anonymous ACX Reader • Your Review: Alpha School
Going to disappear once they scale. Basically an early-adopter’s perk. You can’t promise everyone top 1% performance or you’ll mathematically be refunding a majority of families.
If a pattern of stumbles appears the system will automatically task the student to book a “coaching call” with a remote teacher (most of these teachers seem to be based in Brazil).
Anonymous ACX Reader • Your Review: Alpha School
Why are we outsourcing to Brazil and how are these coaches found? Rigor of assessment for tutoring.
You can make the morning ultra-personalized, but if the goal of the afternoon is socialization that you are missing in the morning, you need to have some sort of alignment on how to spend that afternoon.
That challenge led to Alpha’s 2024 expansion into specialty schools.
That challenge led to Alpha’s 2024 expansion into specialty schools.
Anonymous ACX Reader • Your Review: Alpha School
Splitting kids by sports, gifted academics, and video game design? Weird that skilled labor is not included here. But in light of my late realization that trade school might have been best thing post-high-school for me…could be a good idea
In the first half of 2024 Alpha sent a group of students to Poland to help launch a 2-hour learning pilot among Ukrainian refugees. Students did not pay to go on the trip. But students also did not have a “right” to go on the trip. They had to earn it. In addition to being on top of academic and non-academic expectations, students who wanted to... See more
Anonymous ACX Reader • Your Review: Alpha School
Both educational and fun extracurriculars that bear no resemblance to the stupid stats-padding of normal school life. Positive. Though hard to see how it is replicated in a public school design.
By having access to Alpha kids post-graduation in the high school, Locke could send feedback back to the elementary school.
Anonymous ACX Reader • Your Review: Alpha School
A virtuous feedback loop