Class Dismissed: Profile of Joe Liemandt and Alpha School
joincolossus.com
joincolossus.com
- 1 on 1 tutoring yields about 2 standard deviations of improvement, but costs too much.
- The Alpha system is very effective but costs about $40,000/student.
- It's not that complicated. 2-3 hours a day of intense computer-monitored study, about half using off the shelf tools, and the rest of the day is developed to less structured projects. This is a useful insight. Push kids hard for about 2-3 hours a day and then get to the fun stuff.
- Works on ordinary kids. Strong claims in this area. Needs outside validation.
- Lots of carrot, including cash payments for achievement. Not much stick.
- Staff/student ratio about 1:5. No teachers from bottom quartile of teacher population.
This is the known formula to accelerate teaching and learning. Even the Gates Foundation (whom I loathe) documented this.
Every single one of the successful programs that the Gates Foundation analyzed were declared as too expensive and shut down.
But it will be interesting to see how far it scales up and into what demographics before it stops working and they reach their limits.
So far, it seems they've had success with in-person schools and it didn't work (yet) remotely. Motivation seems like the key factor.
You have to figure out something you can apply kids in spite of who their parents are. If not, you have to admit that there's no such thing as a meritocracy divorced from what the parents are willing or able to provide (which opens up questions of how much children deserve to have that deficit filled, it if happens to exist in any individual case).
First, not all the students come from wealthy backgrounds, which is a common assumption. Second, while the school emphasizes 2-3 hours of intensive computer and AI-driven learning, there are other critical aspects to the model. For instance, their approach is based on 100% mastery—students only move forward once they’ve fully grasped a concept. I don’t love the term but it’s called “hole filling”. This prevents the typical gaps you might see with partial mastery, where scoring 75% or 85% on a core concept can lead to challenges down the road. It’s hard to argue with, when are you supposed to make up that 15%? When every next lesson plan builds on it based on you having understood it… I get it but, I think it’s a disservice in the long term.
Not all kids are the brightest or best. I will say all kids become the local best of themselves. There’s an affordance for struggle and the time to wallow in it and dig yourself out of it. There is little tolerance for apathy or lack of effort. Since everything is done till failure. My 3rd grader doing 6th grade math actually has no idea she’s good at math. She struggles the same as the kid 1 level behind. Everyone is constantly at the point of growth.
My kids also consistently placed in the 99th percentile on MAP testing, often working two or more grade levels ahead. However, what stood out was that Alpha doesn’t foster a sense of comparison between students. The focus is on individual growth—competing with yourself to not only succeed but also recover from failure. The kids honestly have no idea what each of them are learning and at what levels. It’s not a secret, it’s just not talked about. It’s a personal journey between you and your guides (what they call teachers, but aren’t teachers)
Now that my kids have transitioned to more traditional schools—one in a top-ranked magnet (#2 high school in Texas) and the other in a prep school—I can see the lasting impact of Alpha. They have zero fear of test-taking, as they’re accustomed to frequent assessments, including weekly STAR tests. Public speaking is second nature to them, thanks to regular presentations and speeches they began preparing as early as Level 1 (think 6 year olds). My 9-year-old, at the time 7, once gave a memorized 5 minute speech on global warming to a crowd of 80 adults… it’s just awesome.
Key takeaways as I’ve reflect the last couple months since we transitioned:
- No agenda-driven education: Alpha focuses on “how to learn,” not dictating “what to learn.” No politics, no gender or race or religious distractions. Kids just being kids. Guides just trying to unlock them to push them further. - Tech proficiency: Both kids are exceptionally comfortable with tech tools like AI using them to enhance their abilities rather than as cheap shortcuts. For instance, my 9-year-old types at 50 wpm with 95% accuracy, while my 14-year-old is in the 80s. Both girls programmed self driving cars with python and my youngest has deployed to vercel an ai vibe coded project using cursor. It’s not computer lab once a week. It’s computer lab woven in to the culture and everything you do. - Frequent tests: They are unfazed by tests and accustomed to regular evaluations. Weekly STAR tests and Map test 2/3 times a year. Easily for 90+ percent of the kids there is no test anxiety. - everything is measured. They even know if your kids is staring out the window all day instead of getting their work done. No in a creepy way but a hey.. what’s going on, why are you stuck, how do we get you engaged. (It’s why they have guides) - Public speaking: They’ve developed strong public speaking skills, starting at an early age. Every “session” ends with kids presenting to ALL parents what they learned and why. Think of it as a demo day. Called “test to pass”. Not to be cliche it’s pride in accomplishment and responsibility in failure… in a very public way. - Self-driven learning: Alpha helps to instilled in them the mindset to be creators of their own futures and not passive consumers of other people ideas.
While there were certainly trade-offs, the core values of self-driven learning, technological proficiency, and adaptability far outweigh any downsides. I would not trade our time there for anything.
Ask me anything. Happy to share!
What’s wild.. at Alpha. Money is no issue or object of discussion other than my oldest coming home with 2k on a Venmo for scoring 100% on the Star test. Or the kids dream up that they want to do a life skill challenge in Montana camping off the grid.. anything is possible!
Now let’s jump to the public magnet schools. They talk about money all day long.
Hey kids if you score x better on this up coming test I’ll get a raise as your educator.
We don’t have money for textbooks so if you want one it’s available in the library for $15
The nurse has to fill out a grant request for getting an ice fridge replaced so she doesn’t have to walk 20 minutes to athletic department.
The sci-tech teacher literally reminisced about how years ago they could afford this specific type of protractor and now it’s these cheap ones that have to be borrowed.
Kids like mine notice it, feel it and on some level probably wrestle with “why” is this a topic. I have used this as an opportunity to teach my kids a lot of things they have yet to be exposed to. And as a family we try to solve some of the specific needs by donating the thing we hear is missing or needed.
All fascinating
For the youngest… Her abilities consistently surpassed what the grade levels could accommodate, and she often found herself operating outside the norm for what the "level" is designed to do. In this situation, there’s something to be said for an experienced teacher—someone who’s worked with tens of thousands of students over their career and can provide personalized challenges that push her toward excellence.... IMO there is no magic bullet here and even if there was, it's not probably scalable. It’s a level of growth that goes beyond what algorithm based scoring can offer... being a tech guy and fully understanding the school and the tech... it's a difficult problem. It's even difficult to explain (for me) Maybe it’s one of those “slow down to speed up” scenarios.
On the practical... once one kids is out they both need to be. Alpha has 6 weeks on, 1 week off.. different summer and spring breaks from the school system so it would be insane to try and support that on a calendar alone. -- The central idea is that whether it’s Alpha or a public school, everything hinges on having teachers/guides who hold themselves and their students to the highest standards... lets call it excellence. In my opinion, teachers should likely earn two to three times their current salaries, similar to Alpha. With this substantial pay increase, there should also come higher expectations for merit-based excellence, rather than teaching being seen as just another job... or worse.. Teaching should be a respected, high-value $$ profession. It should be challenging to become a teacher and equally challenging to remain one, but the rewards should be dramatically reimagined compared to what we see today. Im aware this is not just a simple choice but it should be something we figure out...
It also seems like the lessons are centrally planned, there doesn't seem to be any flexibility or adaption to students abilities which seems being antiquated unless you are only recruiting high achieving students or quietly kicking out low achievers.
I noticed that most if not all of the achievements you listed seem very STEMy or businessy. Is there any focus on the arts? Any support for artistic skills (ie. dancing, drama, vocal, instrumental, writing), social sciences or biological sciences? Do they learn work and communicate in a team and work through team challenges?
If the schools are so good why do you think they haven't allowed or sought any independent verification of the academic performance of the students at the school? It sounds like the scientific thing to do for a presumably sciencey oriented school.
The program is heavily STEM-focused. While my kids perform at the 99th percentile on MAP tests, often two years ahead of their grade level, they would struggle with topics like explaining the structure and role of government. They’re also not exposed to the kind of collective literary analysis you’d find in a traditional classroom—like debating whether Santiago is defeated or victorious at the end of his journey in The Old Man and the Sea and unpacking what “A man can be destroyed but not defeated” truly means. For kids with a natural inclination toward literature or civics, they might gravitate toward those areas independently, but for most, these subjects are entirely overlooked.
Of course, there’s no perfect solution. At the two new schools I’ve observed, the reverse is true—they’re allergic to meaningful tech integration and don’t get me started on the adversarial views on Ai. In contrast, Alpha’s approach leverages apps heavily for core curriculum, which allows for customization per child. The “app and data team” makes strategic decisions about which tools to use for specific tasks (Khan Academy for one concept, IXL for another). It’s not random; it’s deliberate and data-driven.
Extracurriculars like sports or dance fall outside the core structure but offer unique opportunities. For instance, my oldest studied Chinese for two years with a college student from Brown University via Zoom… a fantastic experience that reflects the possibilities when budget isn’t a limiting factor.
As for independent verification, the MAP scores and test results are very real, and the improvement in transfer students is striking. However, their model is still evolving. Right now, they’re in a "move fast and break things" phase, but I anticipate a period of refinement where STEM emphasis gives way to a more balanced inclusion of liberal arts and social studies. The avoidance of certain subjects, though, is a scalability issue—they require instructor-led learning, and apps for reading and writing analysis are, at best, mediocre. As an aside, I love STEM but I almost feel like in education it sucked a lot of the oxygen out of the room. Being a girl-dad it’s obvious. Nearly all of the marketing and agendas in TV programming as about girls in STEM. It’s the only way forward… I think what we see is a value imbalance. Debating old man in the sea isn’t needed “today”… but it’s critical for long term human advancement… the other issue I feel For example, a 3rd grader reading at an 8th-grade level poses challenges in finding age-appropriate digital content. Reading level isn’t the same as content maturity, and that’s a gap they/tech/ed-tech haven’t fully bridged yet. This is not an Alpha model problem, it’s just they are at the bleeding level of what tech and ai are doing. I have no don’t it will be solved.
Hope this helps clarify things!
Sounds like you have had a near-fatal dose of this off-brand Kool-Aid.
>learning things like how to run an Airbnb or food truck, manage a brokerage account or Broadway production, or build a business or drone.
I remember touring my high school alma mater, a local magnet with a decent record of getting kids into top schools (that it was fed by the bedroom communities of NASA and USDA sites clearly notwithstanding). As we passed the shop, we spent a good 15 minutes learning about the small plane students were building. A good 10-foot wingspan. I matriculated and that was the last I heard of it.
I've noticed that, in marketing for educational institutions, it's common for the uncommon and exceptional achievements of That One Student to get pushed as indicative of what most students can expect to (and will never actually) do. I'd think most would do well to be wary of an article that starts out with such a claim. Regression to the mean probably factors in, even for outlier schools.
That said, some combination of AI + Wikipedia could probably do amazing things for teaching a student. Here's the thing: if the student trusts that he can ask any stupid question to an AI, a well trained one can probably walk students through concepts in any of thousands of different questions asked by previous students and lead them through to the end goal.
I can see the potential.
But these guys? No. Education should be humanist, not capitalist. You can already see it: look at the little entrepreneur parrots we created. This isn't education to benefit the child: it's marketing to the parents to get them to pay up because their precious child will become the next Bill Gates.
The software alone seems not to be the answer, though.
A couple of whole pages scrolled later, I was like oh.. ok. This is how this connects.
Feels like a film script.