High-income families shift to AI-based and life-skills K-8 schools

Alpha School expands to nearly two dozen new locations this fall

Ankur Jain, president of a hedge fund, said his 11-year-old son was thriving at his Madison, New Jersey, public school but that he was drawn to Forge Prep’s promise of teaching negotiation, sales and public speaking — skills he said he did not fully develop until his 20s.

“The future is changing,” Jain told the Journal. “If we’re still teaching the kids the way we used to 60, 70, 80 years ago, how are we preparing them?”

Jain is among a growing number of high-income parents turning to what are sometimes called “alternative” K-8 schools, which call teachers “guides” or “coaches,” deploy AI-based tutors that customize curriculum to each child, and focus on project-based learning, entrepreneurship, and real-world problem-solving.

Alpha School, which began in Austin 12 years ago, has attracted the most attention. It added eight schools in 2025 — including locations in San Francisco and New York — and plans nearly two dozen more this fall, with new sites in Palo Alto, the East Bay, and Malibu, according to the Journal. The school offers two hours of AI-based tutoring each day followed by interactive workshops. Its in-person guides are all paid six figures, said Anna Davlantes, an Alpha spokeswoman. Remote coaches assist with the AI software from locations around the globe. Alpha also sells homeschooling software and its skills-based curriculum.

Shaun Johnson, a venture capitalist in San Francisco, said he plans to send his son to an Alpha kindergarten after being dissatisfied with the public school his family received in the local lottery. “We recognize that education is likely broken the way it is and there’s going to be entrepreneurs that try to fix it,” Johnson told the Journal. He said the main draw is personalization: the AI platform records students’ attention levels and adjusts curriculum in response. “It’s not AI for AI’s sake,” he said. “It’s personalization.”

The school counts billionaire Bill Ackman among its high-profile fans, the Journal reported. Many New York Alpha families work in finance or venture capital, while Bay Area families are largely in tech, according to Davlantes.

Alpha co-founder MacKenzie Price previously told the Journal that the school also aims to keep hot-button social issues out of its classrooms.

In New Jersey, Anand Sanwal founded Forge Prep, which will open this fall with 34 students across four grades, eventually expanding through 12th grade with a capacity of 400. Sanwal said the school received 600 applications. Tuition for the inaugural class is between $24,000 and $36,000, with 30% of students on financial aid; next year tuition will rise to $60,000. A graduate who starts a company and works on it full-time would be eligible for a $200,000 investment from Forge. Sanwal said the school is phone-free, uses Chromebooks sparingly, and has guides who are all former teachers. Students use AI for “creation not consumption,” he said.

“The world is changing really fast,” Sanwal told the Journal. “I’m pretty sure the model the parents had when they were in school is not going to work for what’s about to happen.”

Some education experts expressed caution about the trend. Caroline Hoxby, a professor at Stanford University, said project-based learning variations have existed for centuries, but what is new are hybrid programs that integrate AI. “They are very inclined to take on tools for their children that are not traditional tools,” Hoxby said.

Yet she said the effectiveness of such models is largely unknown. “I am not a cheerleader for any type of education for which there is negligible scientific-type empirical evidence,” Hoxby told the Journal.

Alpha’s Davlantes responded that the school works with “globally renowned learning scientists” and a “larger team of highly qualified academics behind the platform,” based on “decades of foundational research.”

Victor Lee, a professor with the Stanford Graduate School of Education, said that an entrepreneurial or AI focus might narrow the appeal and lead to a more homogenous student body than standard private schools. He also said that by avoiding the title “teacher,” the models risk minimizing the profession. “It does have a negative impact on recognizing the work and skills that teachers bring,” Lee told the Journal. “It diminishes the role and degree of professionalism that teaching requires.”

Davlantes said Alpha’s guides voted against being called teachers.

Renzi Stone, who runs a marketing strategy firm in Oklahoma City, began using Alpha’s at-home software for his son, who just finished eighth grade, at about $800 a month. He said he has spent well over $300,000 on private education for his two children over the years and was disappointed by academic outcomes. “I think this is a sea-change moment in our country where we need to reimagine curriculum,” Stone told the Journal.

Unlike public schools, these alternative schools are not required to report performance metrics to the state, the Journal noted, and their relative effectiveness is difficult to evaluate. When asked about the lack of public data, Sanwal said, “There’s nothing that would suggest if we look at their metrics that things are going well.”