Five Stories Buried in WIRED’s Bombshell Alpha School Investigation

WIRED published an article that showed up today in my Apple News feed about the Alpha School I discussed in a recent post, part of my recent fixation on surveillance as the death knell of learning. The bottom line? Caveat emptor. If you’re searching for an AI school, you might want to look more carefully at Alpha before enrolling your child. The new Alpha site in Brownsville, Texas, has run into turbulence. The article is thorough and lengthy. I suggest finding it and reading it in its entirety.

Todd Feathers’ October 27, 2025 WIRED investigation, “Parents Fell in Love With Alpha School’s Promise. Then They Wanted Out”is the kind of deep-dive reporting that takes months and reveals uncomfortable truths. But some of the most damning revelations are tucked deep in the narrative. Here’s what you need to know:

1. IXL Kicked Alpha School Off Its Platform for Terms of Service Violations

This might be the most significant revelation in the entire piece, mentioned almost in passing:

“In a statement to WIRED, IXL representatives wrote that Alpha School’s account was deactivated this past July and claims that it is ‘no longer an IXL customer due to violating our terms of service,’ adding that IXL ‘is not intended—and we do not recommend its use—as a replacement’ for ‘trained, caring teachers.’”

Let that sink in. IXL—the very software that Alpha was using for the bulk of its math, language, and science instruction—fired its customer for misusing the product. IXL explicitly states their software should not replace teachers. Alpha’s entire model was built around doing exactly that.

When your primary curriculum vendor terminates your account and publicly distances themselves from how you’re using their product, that’s not a minor hiccup. That’s a fundamental repudiation of your educational model.

2. The School Withheld Medically-Prescribed Food as Punishment

This story is breathtaking in its cruelty:

A 9-year-old girl lost so much weight that her pediatrician became concerned and wrote a note instructing the school to provide snacks between meals. The girl’s father walked her into school with the note in hand. She told her parents she delivered it to staff.

What happened next? According to her mother, Kristine Barrios:

“For the first few days, Barrios says, her daughter ate her snacks. Then one afternoon she returned with them still in her backpack, uneaten. Barrios, alarmed, asked if Alpha was providing different food instead. No, the 9-year-old answered. She told her mom that staff at the school said she didn’t earn her snacks and wouldn’t get them until she met her learning metrics.”

A child with documented weight loss. A doctor’s note. And staff who decided that food was just another reward to be gamified.

“As a parent, you’re like, this is not OK,” Barrios recalls. She pulled both her kids out that November.

3. Webcam Surveillance Extended Into Students’ Bedrooms—By Default

Alpha School uses what it calls “basic and extended capabilities” to monitor students. The surveillance includes screen recording, mouse and keyboard tracking, and eye-tracking programs. The school handbook states there is “no expectation of privacy” on campus.

But here’s the kicker: the surveillance extended into students’ homes—and parents had to manually opt out.

Jessica Lopez learned this the hard way. Her daughter was working on schoolwork one night:

“She says she remembers sitting on her bed one night working on schoolwork when she received a notification that she’d been flagged for an anti-pattern. She says Alpha’s system sent a video of her in her pajamas, taken from the computer’s webcam, that showed her talking to her younger sister.”

The girl was in her bedroom. In her pajamas. On her bed. And Alpha’s surveillance system was watching, recording, and flagging her behavior.

Alpha compares these tools to “game film” using a “pro sports analogy.” But professional athletes consent to being filmed during games. They don’t have cameras in their bedrooms.

4. The “Academic Coaches” Are Outsourced Foreign Contractors With No Teaching Background

When students get stuck, they can book a call with an “academic coach” who is “part of” 2 Hour Learning. Sounds reasonable, right?

Here’s what WIRED discovered:

“A list of the 31 academic coaches Alpha provided for the 2023-24 school year, obtained by WIRED, includes LinkedIn profiles for 26 that show they have been employed, usually as ‘analysts,’ by either Trilogy, Liemandt’s software automation company, or Crossover, another Liemandt firm, which has been described as the world’s largest recruiter for remote full-time work. At least 27 of the coaches live outside the US, from the Philippines to Colombia, according to their Linkedin profiles.”

Let me break this down: Parents are paying $40,000-$75,000 per year—well, Brownsville is Alpha’s attempt to service marginalized children as well so they lowered the price to $10,000, within teach of vouchers. When their children need help, they’re connected to remote workers in other countries who are employed as “analysts” by Joe Liemandt’s software automation companies.

These aren’t experienced teachers. They’re employees of the tech billionaire’s other businesses, working remotely, with no apparent teaching credentials.

5. Students Developed Self-Harm Behaviors Directly Linked to the Gamified Metrics

This is the most disturbing story in the entire article. Lopez’s older daughter, describing her experience at Alpha:

“I was pulling my hair out, ripping my skin off. I think at one point I didn’t eat for most of the day because I told myself I don’t eat unless I get something right. I have to do this. Rewards, rewards, motivation, everything became a reward.”

When a guide noticed she was distressed, what intervention did they provide? According to the student:

“They gave her a piece of paper to tear at instead. She told WIRED that they also gave her a plushie toy that she used as a punching bag.”

Not a counselor. Not a call to parents. Not a curriculum adjustment. Paper to tear and a plushie to punch.

The girl’s mother says her daughter “had trouble with sensory issues and hyperactivity since before her time at Alpha.” Alpha’s response to a child in crisis was to give her objects to redirect her physical self-harm—and then keep her in the same system that was causing the distress.

The Response

When confronted with these stories, Alpha School founder MacKenzie Price told WIRED that Jessica Lopez is a “loud example” of someone who has “a huge difference in philosophy” and that Alpha is “not for everyone.”

Price added: “Students thrive when they’re in an environment with high standards and high support, which our guides do. But not everyone believes that, right? There are so many parents who do not really believe in high standards. There are parents who don’t believe in high support.”

In other words: If Alpha didn’t work for your child, maybe you just don’t believe in standards.

This is particularly galling given that multiple parents describe children who excelled academically but suffered psychologically and physically. One anonymous parent told WIRED their son “went from a really happy kid, where school completely changed him that first year, to just a work machine who would do whatever it took.”

The Bigger Picture

Alpha School is backed by billionaires. Joe Liemandt, whose fortune comes from selling automation software, serves as “principal.” Bill Ackman has promoted it. Reid Hoffman says it “can be a reality for every student, anywhere.” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon visited and called it “the most exciting thing I’ve seen in education in a long time.”

The school is expanding to roughly a dozen new campuses across Arizona, California, Florida, New York, North Carolina, and Virginia. An affiliated charter school called Unbound Academy is enrolling students in Arizona, despite charter applications being rejected in Arkansas, Pennsylvania, and Utah.

Pennsylvania’s Department of Education was blunt in its denial: “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.”

But here’s what’s most concerning: Alpha points to its Brownsville campus as proof that its model works for low-income, predominantly Hispanic communities. From the article:

“At least five families (including some with more than one child) have departed. That hasn’t stopped Alpha’s leaders from pointing to Brownsville as an example, in at least one white paper and in applications to open new charter schools, of how the proprietary model Alpha uses, 2 Hour Learning, can succeed in communities with ‘low SES’ (meaning socioeconomic status).”

As Jessica Lopez told WIRED: “They’re using our people as bait. They’re sharing that they’re in Brownsville, and how they helped us grow academically in a 98 to 99 percent low-income Hispanic community, so yes, it works for everybody. I don’t want to be their statistic, the reason somebody else goes through this.”

What Happened to the Children?

A big part of this story is what happened after families left Alpha.

Kristine Barrios’ daughter, who had stopped eating and told her mother she’d “rather die” than continue with her IXL lessons, began eating regularly again within weeks of leaving Alpha and returning to homeschooling. But “regaining her interest in school was more of a struggle,” Barrios says. “It’s taken the better part of this past year to get her back to baseline, that natural exuberance and love of learning and life.”

Lopez’s daughters both attend public school now. Her oldest has continued to excel academically, and her younger daughter “has a newfound confidence in her studies.” All she needed, Lopez says, was “someone who could walk her through content that’s just not landing.”

Another parent whose son left Alpha as an 8-year-old found that “he could read words quickly but didn’t comprehend what he was reading.” When he enrolled as a third grader at his new school, “he was writing at a kindergarten level.” When writing by hand, “he would get to the end of a line and curve down into the margins, not knowing he was supposed to move to the next line.”

The Bottom Line

I’m not categorically opposed to AI in education. I’m not even opposed to personalized learning software when used appropriately. But this investigation reveals a system where:

• Software replaces teachers

• Foreign contractors with no teaching credentials provide “coaching”

• Surveillance extends into children’s bedrooms

• Food is gamified as a reward

• Children develop self-harm behaviors

• When children struggle, it’s framed as a parental failure to “believe in high standards”

And all of this is being packaged and sold—for $40,000 to $75,000 per year—as the future of education.

If you’re considering Alpha School for your child, read the full WIRED investigation. Don’t rely on the marketing materials. Don’t rely on billionaire endorsements. Look at what happened in Brownsville.

As the parents there learned: caveat emptor.

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Source: Feathers, Todd. “Parents Fell in Love With Alpha School’s Promise. Then They Wanted Out.” WIRED, 27 Oct. 2025.

What do you think? Is this the future of education we want? Let me know in the comments.