Modern Wisdom Podcast #981 — MacKenzie Price

Alpha School: A New Approach to Education
Host: Chris Williamson
Guest: MacKenzie Price
Date: August 16, 2025

Episode Overview

In this episode, Chris Williamson sits down with MacKenzie Price, founder of Alpha School, to discuss a revolutionary new approach to education. They delve deep into the shortcomings of the traditional school system, explore how technology—particularly artificial intelligence—is enabling personalized, mastery-based learning, and reveal how Alpha School empowers students through life skills, motivation, and a redefined teacher role. The conversation is energetic, optimistic, and filled with concrete examples of how education could look in the near future.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What’s Broken in Traditional Schooling?

• Outdated Model: The “teacher in front of the classroom” dates back to the Industrial Revolution. It's rooted in mass instruction intended to produce compliant factory workers, not creative or critically-minded individuals.
  • “The teacher in front of the classroom model of one person trying to educate many kids who are at wildly different levels… just fundamentally doesn’t work.” – MacKenzie (00:06)
• Uniformity vs. Individual Needs: Students sit through material either already mastered or not understood, leading to boredom or disengagement, and little true learning.
• Motivation Crisis: Traditional schools rely on distant, delayed rewards (grades, college) rather than cultivating excitement for learning.
  • “90% of what creates a great learner is they have to be motivated.” – MacKenzie (05:59)
• Compliance Over Creativity: The system excels at producing compliance but fails at nurturing intrinsic motivation, curiosity, and actual life skills.
• Academic Failure Rates: Only a third of students are proficient at grade level in math or reading, gaps that widened after COVID-19.
  • “A high school senior who graduates in the 50th percentile…knows the same amount of math as a third grader who’s at the 99th percentile.” – MacKenzie (12:29)

2. Why Hasn’t the System Changed?

• Cultural Inertia: Parents default to what they remember, assuming “I turned out fine.” Sentimentality and lack of alternatives breed complacency.
• Teacher Burnout: Teachers are overworked, underpaid, and must play multiple roles—admin, counselor, disciplinarian, lesson planner—leaving little energy for mentorship or innovation.
  • “Teachers have been given a bucket with holes in it and told to empty the ocean.” – MacKenzie (17:23)

3. The Alpha School Model: Redefining Learning

• One-to-one Mastery Learning: AI-driven, adaptive educational tools offer instant feedback and tailored pacing, enabling all students to move at their optimal rate.
• Efficiency: Core academics are completed in roughly two hours each day; students consistently perform in the top 1% nationally.
  • “Our classes are performing in the top 1% in the country and we’re doing it in only two hours a day.” – MacKenzie (20:54)
• Rest of the Day: Freed up time is devoted to real-world life skills: entrepreneurship, teamwork, leadership, communication, public speaking, and physical challenges.
• Teacher as Mentor/Coach: Teachers (“guides”) focus on motivation, mentorship, and providing social/emotional support rather than subject-matter lecturing.
  • “We’ve transformed the role of the teacher to be more of a coach and a mentor because coaches really are phenomenal at impacting kids.” – MacKenzie (10:38)
• Project-Based Learning: From running businesses and planning events to public speaking “in the wild,” students tackle challenges fostering grit, adaptability, and creativity.
• Socialization & Play: Daily schedules include 90 minutes of free, unstructured play, compared to the U.S. average of 22 minutes.

Alpha School Daily Routine [27:16]

• 8:45 am: Group activity (Limitless Launch) energizes and inspires.
• 9:00 am – 11:00 am: Personalized academic blocks (math, reading, language, science).
• Breaks & Autonomy: Students are given freedom in workspace, reflecting real-world productivity.
• From Noon: Outdoor play, project-based workshops, teamwork, and life skills activities.

Notable Workshop Example [30:50]

• Public Speaking in the Wild: Students practice speeches to cats at a humane society, residents at an assisted living facility, then perform in real public forums.

4. Technology & AI in Alpha

• No Chatbots Used: Avoids LLM chat interfaces; students use adaptive educational platforms, with AI identifying strengths, weaknesses, and providing tailored lessons.
• Self-Driven Learning: Students learn to learn—using resource libraries, feedback, self-paced modules, and regular “test to pass” life skill assessments.
• Less Total Screen Time: Compared to traditional schools, with tech use strictly for personalized learning, not passive digital consumption.
  • “There is a huge difference between doom scrolling TikTok or playing a video game and getting a one to one learning experience where you are totally engaged.” – MacKenzie (41:19)

5. Outcomes & Assessment

• Objective, Data-Driven Evaluation: Standardized test results drive transparent, actionable feedback.
• SAT Results: Median score for Alpha seniors—1530/1600; freshmen average 1410.
• Life Skills Measurement: Every workshop culminates in a “test to pass” (e.g., third graders complete a triathlon: solve a Rubik’s cube, juggle, run a mile).
  • “When you can see a group of third and fourth graders... they finish that, guess what? Those kids have grit.” – MacKenzie (48:20)
• Post-Graduation Success: Alpha students reportedly thrive at elite universities, leveraging autonomy, motivation, and real-world agency to outperform.

6. Criticisms & Limitations

• Cost & Access: Currently a private school, tuition ranges from $25,000 to $75,000; teachers are paid well and the model is resource-intensive.
  • “We are expensive. We are a high-end private school.” – MacKenzie (55:53)
• Selection Bias: Alpha families tend to be highly engaged, innovative, or privileged—selection effects inherent to private education.
• Scalability: MacKenzie is optimistic about scaling, advocating for the public system to reallocate resources and adopt similar methods with lower cost as AI becomes cheaper.
• Not For Everyone: Alpha School’s model appeals to a subset of open-minded, future-facing parents, but may not yet translate everywhere.

7. The Future: Five Years to Fundamental Change?

• Tech as Catalyst: As AI gets cheaper and more capable, mastery-based learning and personalized education will become the norm.
  • “Just like when the invention of the microscope catapulted what was possible in biology, artificial intelligence is that tool that is going to…make learning science a hugely impactful science in the classroom.” – MacKenzie (65:56)
• Life Skills in Focus: Emphasis will shift from rote memorization to collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, and communication.
• Equity & Access: School choice policies and lower tech cost may soon drive tuition toward public-access levels, enabling wider implementation and eventually, systemic change.
• Broader Vision: More hands-on, project-based, “time-gifting” schooling, prioritizing motivation, autonomy, and whole-person development.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Teachers have been given a bucket with holes in it and told to empty the ocean.”
  — MacKenzie, on teacher burnout and impossible expectations (17:23)

• “Our classes are performing in the top 1% in the country and we’re doing it in only two hours a day.”
  — MacKenzie, on Alpha’s academic achievements (20:54)

• “If I could wave a magic wand and help parents understand three things… kids should love school; they can crush their academics in a couple hours a day; and high standards coupled with high support are the key to a happy, healthy kid.”
  — MacKenzie, on the three pillars of effective education (53:34)

• “There is a huge difference between doom scrolling TikTok or playing a video game and getting a one to one learning experience where you are totally engaged at the exact right pace that your brain can handle.”
  — MacKenzie, discussing screen time concerns (41:19)

• “I am such an optimist. That’s why I just think a five-year-old is really lucky because we are going to see a huge change in education in the next five years.”
  — MacKenzie, on her optimism for rapid educational transformation (65:56)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00–04:00: Why the current classroom model is fundamentally broken
• 09:01–10:38: Why education resists innovation; role of nostalgia and inertia
• 12:04–16:17: Academic decline, teacher overwork, and inequality in outcomes
• 17:23–18:57: Personal story—MacKenzie’s tipping point and exit from the public system
• 20:17–23:02: Parent attitudes and the case for alternative models
• 27:06–30:50: Day in the life at Alpha School; schedule, methods, and structure
• 32:38–36:19: Hands-on, project-based learning and student enthusiasm
• 37:30–41:05: Technology stack—how AI is used, not just chatbots
• 41:19–45:42: Screen time, creative production vs. consumption, and essential life skills
• 45:58–50:51: How Alpha measures academic and life skill outcomes
• 54:37–56:25: Handling criticism: the “robot school” misconception and tuition costs
• 56:30–59:25: Can this scale to the public sector? What would it take?
• 65:15–69:38: The next 5–20 years: a bold vision for global educational change

Final Thoughts & Where to Learn More

MacKenzie Price’s enthusiasm and vision for education runs throughout the conversation. From childhood motivation and individual pacing, to life skills and real-world application, Alpha School’s approach boldly reimagines what school can be. Though largely accessible to the privileged for now, Price is confident that AI-powered personalized education will rapidly democratize—and transform—a system long overdue for change.

Find more about Alpha School and MacKenzie’s work:

• Instagram, Facebook, YouTube: Future of Education
• Alpha School Website (Website not provided in transcript)

For those seeking a fresh, data-driven perspective on education’s future, this episode provides both inspiration and a practical model for what’s possible—now and in the decades to come.