THIRD REPORT: “It’s pretty dystopian if you think about it”

Latest report on Alpha School’s activities and culture

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What I uncovered about Alpha School boot camp was a tiny tadpole in a much larger and very polluted pond.

People are reaching out to tell me their stories. In the wake of my special report and follow-up story last week, I’ve spoken to numerous former Alpha School parents, ex-Alpha School employees (so to speak, see footnote), current and former Alpha School contractors, and former employees of Joe Liemandt’s other business ventures.¹ At least one currently enrolled student reached out to me, but later got cold feet about talking, which is more than understandable.

Because people are scared.

For many reasons, the people I’ve corresponded with have expressed worries about speaking up. I do not blame them. There’s no upside for them personally. My reporting raises the question of whether Alpha School is a cult, and however one chooses to answer that based on what we’ve learned, there’s no question that Joe Liemandt possesses the resources that strike fear in people. Cults depend upon mythology in order to maintain their appeal, and they often will strike back hard at efforts to pierce their mystique — a great deal of First Amendment law has been created via the Church of Scientology. I have been consulting with practicing attorneys regularly throughout this process — my thanks to all of you, you know who you are — which is not something I’d ever anticipated writing a newsletter about cognition and AI.

This story is massive. I have spoken to numerous reporters who are working their own angles, and their stories will drop soon. I have also initiated efforts to farm out some of what I’ve learned to other investigative journalists, because I do not have the time nor the resources to pursue every lead I’ve uncovered. My main focus at this point is the student experience at Alpha School, for reasons that will soon be apparent. But there are many issues I’m trying to hold in my head.

Some have asked me why I am doing this, and who might be paying me. The short answer to the latter question is no one, as I never expected to become thrust into the role of “citizen journalist,” this was not on my career agenda.

As to the why, the short answer is that children are at risk. As I mentioned in my initial report, it was finding that solitary student tweet sent to MacKenzie Price, the student wrestling with the morality of boot camp activities, that shifted my perspective from bemused curiosity to genuine concern. What I’ve learned since about Alpha School has shook me to my core. I’ve cried multiple times in interviews.

In what follows, I share what I’ve learned about various aspects of Alpha School activities and culture. Given the palpable fear of my sources, I agreed not to name them in this story and to remove certain identifying details. I’ve used the designation “observer” to describe former Alpha School employees, as well those who went through the hiring process but did not join Alpha School, and contractors who had full-day in-person visits. Parents are identified seperately. I’ve added highlighting for emphasis (and skim-reading, no judgments here); reporting and commentary from me are in standard text format.

There are four sections to this report:

1. Observations on TimeBack (formerly “2 Hour Learning”)

2. Observations on the Dean of Parents role at Alpha School

3. Observations on Alpha School culture generally

4. My brief commentary

Let’s dig in.

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Observations on TimeBack (formerly “2 Hour Learning”)

How so?

The Alpha School model involves students using software on computers for at least two hours each day. This was and sometimes still is called “2 Hour Learning,” but in November 2025, a blog post by MacKenzie Price on Alpha School’s website suggests this activity has been rebranded as “TimeBack.” As Price explains, the name was apparently chosen because the goal of Alpha School is “to give kids their time back.” Makes sense, at least as nomenclature. The same post states, “TimeBack is a $100 million project to build an AI platform that helps students learn 10x faster than traditional classrooms.”

None of my sources suggested that students are learning 10x faster because of TimeBack. Here instead is what they told me.

Observer:

I watched kids clicking on a bunch of crap. And there is just one image that really stuck out to me.

When I was young, I went to a school where we learned about nature and went outside, and there was a fish pond where we would catch fish. But then I saw this kid looking at a screen with a picture of someone holding tadpoles in their hands, and the app was talking about tadpoles, and I was like, man, that is so pathetic. The families are paying tens of thousands of dollars per year to have their kids look at tadpoles on a screen, rather than experience it for themselves.

It’s pretty dystopian if you think about it.

Observer:

The kindergartners were breaking my heart. They were falling out of their chair. They were putting their heads down. They were clearly not enjoying the learning, at all. One student said to me, “I feel like I’m going to fall asleep in the middle of my work.”

Parent:

Guides and parents were explicitly told not to help or get involved with the kids’ academics. Part of them developing “grit” was to let them struggle. Guides only saw the academics through the data on the Dash, not what the kids were struggling with, not issues with comprehension, just whether they did it or not.

It was extremely frustrating for kids to have the adults in the room do nothing to help but [instead] redirect them back to the screen, and dangle rewards or the fear of having privileges taken away.

Why might guides be prohibited from helping students during the TimeBack period? One source said to me that Alpha School wants to test its software free of the confounding variable of human intervention. Notably, the 404 Media story on Alpha School contains a quote from a former Alpha School employee stating that, “students are being treated like guinea pigs.”

Whether Alpha School guides are formally or informally be prohibited from helping students is an open question. I reviewed one job posting for a guide role on the Crossover website and found this description noteworthy, with my emphasis² :

• You are not a teacher. At Alpha, students learn academics through AI-powered adaptive learning apps. No lectures. No textbooks. No whiteboard. Motivation and life skills, the two things schools normally squeeze into the margins, are the whole job here.

So it appears motivation and life skills are the “whole job” of being a guide.

Here are some additional comments related to TimeBack.

Observer:

Many kids really hate TimeBack. Kids will cry in frustration with the apps, and Alpha School leadership is very dismissive about kids that don’t like it. They’ll say, “they just don't get it.” When the kids are struggling, as I understood it, the guides are not allowed to help them. They might refer them to a special tutor…but that’s done offsite over video.

Meanwhile, the guide is standing right there and doesn’t step in.

Parent:

Alpha told the guides they weren’t supposed to help the kids, but they did anyway. They’d often encourage kids to figure things out on their own. That was baked into Alpha’s DNA. [There was] a fair amount of “figure it out yourself” — independent learning was treated as a core value.

To reiterate what I’ve stated previously, Alpha School’s apparent emphasis on something akin to discovery learning is remarkable, given the prominent involvement of Dr. Carl Hendrick in its activities. Few people have been more vocal than Hendrick in criticizing this approach to instruction (or lack thereof).

I asked Dr. Paul Kirschner, co-author with Hendrick of the book How Learning Happens, to respond to the parent’s observation regarding independent learning. “Discovery learning is neither an efficient, effective, nor satisfying way to learn,” he said. “Discovery is the epistemology of the expert and not the pedagogy of the novice.”

One additional note: I have a growing sense that there may be significant differences between student experiences at Alpha School in Austin — where its history can be traced back to 2014, according to WIRED — and those of students at newer “campuses.” The parents based in Austin were uniformly positive about the guides that worked with their students, and one suggested the guides will help struggling students during the TimeBack period. This was not the case for parents elsewhere. More investigation is needed here.

Alpha School did not respond to my request for comment on whether guides may intervene if a student is struggling when using the TimeBack software.

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Observations on the Dean of Parents role at Alpha School

Last week, the official Alpha School Twitter account tweeted this:

The Dean of Parents role at Alpha School is an interesting one. I reviewed one listing on the Crossover website for this position; it contains a job description that states that “you keep the model intact”:

It is perhaps noteworthy that deans are supposed to get “ultra-high-net-worth” familes to champion 2 Hour Learning rather than Alpha School itself. I also found this “key responsibility” interesting, which again states that “no parent crisis is resolved by compromising the model”:

So preserving the TimeBack model seems important, even if parents object.

My sources had more to say about the Dean of Parents role.

Parent:

I saw the job description for the first Dean of Parents when it was brought to a parent group meeting, and it was remarkable — it basically said your job is to be a buffer against “wealthy, entitled, litigious parents.” It was just talking down about the parents.

The whole Dean of Parents position is a big reason a lot of families left. Why do they even need a buffer?

Parent:

[The Dean of Parents] essentially functioned as the HR department, taking complaints, protecting the company, and maintaining order. The position was framed to us as a liaison to streamline communication between parents and the school, which was a major complaint at the time.

Initially, I felt bad for him because I believed he had bought into the Alpha narrative but [he] slowly realized the chaos he was coming into. He did significant housekeeping, created systems, reframed issues, and put out fires while Alpha was selling its charter around the US as a proven model. However, despite everything brought to his attention, the school never addressed the underlying issues. He served as a pacifier, repeating school talking points he had to know were untrue.

I hold him responsible for the ongoing harm experienced by students. Very few people within the organization had direct contact with upper management, academics, guides, and parents simultaneously, but he did.

Observer:

The dean handles interfaces with the parents. And I thought that’s odd, because as a teacher, one of the best things you can do is know your family.

I have reached out to one person via social media who appears to have recently joined Alpha School as assistant dean of parents at a “campus” in Texas. I encourage other current and former deans to contact me to share their experiences.

I asked Alpha School to elaborate on what it means for “families to be advocates for TimeBack/2 Hour Learning,” and what it means to “compromise the model.” I received no response.

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Observations on Alpha School culture generally

In a post about socializing this is the picture Alpha Schools used

In January 2026, Alpha School co-founder MacKenzie Price published a blog post on the Alpha School website with the title, “Your Kid’s Social Life Matters More Than Academics.” In that post, Price describes various aspects of Alpha School culture, including it being a place where “being a ‘try-hard’ is cool.”

Similarly, one parent with a student currently enrolled in Alpha School’s program, a vocal proponent of Alpha School on social media, echoed this sentiment in mid-August³:

I have little doubt that Alpha School makes business-like activity a central focus, as discussed in my first report in relation to boot camp. But my sources describe a somewhat different culture at Alpha School.

Parent:

It’s like Y Combinator for high schoolers, or a Shark Tank knockoff. It’s ridiculous. The kids are being done a huge disservice — none of it will matter once they’re out in the real world.

Observer:

The culture is to cultivate Silicon Valley startup founders. It’s not to create a well-rounded human.

I think of education as cultivation of the person. But there, if the kid is not interested in what is being taught, they don’t have to learn it — unless it’s teaching to the test with TimeBack, or getting them to crush the SATs.

I don’t think students have to read any literature or great books.

Observer:

Kids are very good at mimicking adults. They’re mimicking some idealized version of the billionaire who started his thing in a garage and grew it into a billion-dollar company, and that sort of ideal that has permeated through the culture.

Parent:

Alpha is Silicon Valley’s fake it-until-you-make-it culture taken to an exponential level. They’ve threatened people, claiming violation of an NDA. They use children as a shield, a buffer against criticism. They want people talking about the kids as a shield against criticism of the school. What they really care about is selling software. They’re faking it until they make it — pure charisma, gaslighting, and intimidation to push the model. It has a cult-like atmosphere.

Observer:

I started reading Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn, and I think Alpha School students are being punished by rewards. They’ve set up a system where you do things to get something tangible. Education is should be a reward on its own — I’m not against stickers or things like that — but overall, it’s the relationships and discussions and conversations that enrich a classroom. But at Alpha, students are purchasing smartwatches with their alpha points.

Alpha School did not respond to my request for comment on the highlighted observations shared here.

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My brief commentary

I was so very proud of my daughter when I described the events of Alpha School boot camp and she replied, without hesitation, that’s not okay. But now I’ve learned so much more about Alpha School, and thus I can state plainly, drawing upon my 20 years of experience working in education as well as my basic sense of human decency:

What’s happening at Alpha School is immoral.

And I’m planning on staying on this beat until the full truth comes to light.

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If you have information to share about Alpha School, please email info at cognitiveresonance dot net with “Alpha School” as subject header. I’m a bit overwhelmed with inbound traffic at the moment — file this under happy problems — so a brief one-to-three sentence summary of what you want to discuss will be greatly appreciated. I am particularly interested right now in learning about student life at Alpha School outside of using the TimeBack software.

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My friend and moral conscience Audrey Watters offered her thoughts on Alpha School over the weekend in an essay titled Click Here to Comply. Grateful for everything you do, Audrey. You help us find the light.

And The Simpsons helps us find the levity, as least in the good seasons. Please enjoy (in wry fashion) The Ayn Rand School for Tots.

1. For ease of reference, I’ll use the term “employees” in this report, but this is more complicated than you might think. I hope to have another investigative journalist (or three) look into the organizational structure and hiring practices of Alpha School and related entities.

2. There is more to this story but I’ll save it for future reporting.

3. This tweet has since been deleted. The parent informed me that their personal tweets are “set up to delete automatically.”