Thread

Tutoring company tells parents to save their money and 'use AI instead'

142 points · 233 comments · theanonymousone

upupupandaway · 1790265861 · focus · HN ↗
A friend of mine put his kid into a school called Alpha [1]. It has no teachers, only guides (?), who are well paid grads but not formally teachers. Kids go in in the morning, do two hours of computer study with an AI program, and the guide only steps in if the kid has a question or doubt the system cannot answer.
Then there's recess and afternoon is all taken up with "Life Skills" classes such as entrepreneurship and the likes.
Kids are tested weekly and progress through grades at will. For example, his kid would officially be in 3rd grade, but she's doing 3rd reading, 5th grade math, and 4th grade writing. She can easily test 3rd grade topics now.
I am ambiguous about this model. Love the "learn as much as you want" even if it means learning 2, 3 grades ahead, but the no-teacher rule and so much computer use seems a little strange. Also if the kid is not extremely self-motivated, they will be left by the side of the road by the school.
[1] - <a href="https://alpha.school/" rel="nofollow">https://alpha.school/
Edit: It's 40k a year.
1. adbachman · 1790266122 · focus · HN ↗
  Alpha shows the results they do because they charge exorbitant rates (up to $75,000 / year depending on region) to staff the school with multiple individualized tutors per student.
  It is a for-profit product which is sold to parents and state-level customers more than it is a school.
  1. upupupandaway · 1790266313 · focus · HN ↗
    1. I have 0 problem with the "for-profit" product if the kids are well-educated. 2. I would challenge the "multiple individualized tutors" claim, as a parent with a kid actually studying there says there is no tutoring, only answering questions on the content or the software being used.
  2. soyboy_supreme · 1790266577 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]
2. doublerabbit · 1790266137 · focus · HN ↗
  Slightly creepy, seems harmless now but future without supervision you don't know what they're teaching or what is going on. I would agree it's a double egged sword.
  1. thewonderfulmrp · 1790266503 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]
3. vatsachak · 1790266400 · focus · HN ↗
  Sounds like a good way to f**k up your kid
  1. nater5000 · 1790268361 · focus · HN ↗
    Literally can't be worse than most public school experiences lol
    vatsachak · 1790269748 · focus · HN ↗
    It can be worse. The prolonged interaction with AI means that your paying 40k a year to make your child an Ipad kid
    skinfaxi · 1790271489 · focus · HN ↗
    Many schools have done away with textbooks and kids use chromebooks.
    vatsachak · 1790273071 · focus · HN ↗
    That is a bad idea, but at least they primarily interact with other kids and teachers
    missedthecue · 1790289408 · focus · HN ↗
    If this is your actual objection to the concept, it's clear you are overlooking how screen-oriented public schools are these days.
4. d-lo · 1790266484 · focus · HN ↗
  I’m very conceptually interested in AI assisted individual learning; I’ve managed to get into a lot of topics that I would have had a hard time approaching without an LLM helping. I really like having AI rephrase concepts usually visualizations and analogies that resonate with me personally. That said, I think there is a lot of sketchiness around Alpha Schools in particular: <a href="https://buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com/p/special-report-my-so-called-alpha" rel="nofollow">https://buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com/p/special-repor...
5. [deleted] · 1790266596 · focus · HN ↗
  [deleted]
6. piltdownman · 1790266709 · focus · HN ↗
  In terms of 3rd level accession and standardised testing I'd imagine they boast great statistics, and that the students are self-evident in communicating a degree of confidence and holistic education beyond their traditionally educated peers.
  However, I would fear that the issue with home-schooling would manifest: that the rarified atmosphere would render them incapable of engaging or coping with the brutal reality of binary-minded Authority figures and hierarchical social constructs in their work and life in the 'real world'.
  To writ, some of the most important lessons I learnt in school were to do with the concept of 'fairness', my own ability for emotional regulation, navigation of social hierarchies, and the symbols and signifiers of popular culture. The curriculum as a whole came a distant second.
  N.B. Public (read:Private) schools in the UK are about £30k a year. Boarding schools hit about 50k in the UK/Ireland. 'New Age' or International schools for the children of diplomats and HNW ex-pats like Nord Anglia or similar go from about €/£20k upwards. 40k a year isn't outrageous in context, even outside of America.
  1. piloto_ciego · 1790268308 · focus · HN ↗
    Then I think you probably learned the wrong lessons.
    The lesson you should have learned would be that we should tear down the "brutal reality of binary-minded Authority figures and hierarchical social constructs." We only tolerate these things as "normal" because people go through their lives not actively trying to tear them down and break them.
    csa · 1790279675 · focus · HN ↗
    > Then I think you probably learned the wrong lessons.
    > The lesson you should have learned would be that we should tear down the "brutal reality of binary-minded Authority figures and hierarchical social constructs." We only tolerate these things as "normal" because people go through their lives not actively trying to tear them down and break them.
    I was a product of an environment like that (magnet school with a lot of unstructured time and good access to resources), and it didn’t take me very long to run into the Binary Authoritarian Figures’ version of “you and what army?”, and they were largely correct.
    There are ways to undermine parts of the establishment, sometimes even at scale, but the process is not always obvious or easy to access.
    piloto_ciego · 1790283912 · focus · HN ↗
    So you gave up when it got hard? That’s kind of what I read out of that.
    csa · 1790285786 · focus · HN ↗
    > So you gave up when it got hard? That’s kind of what I read out of that.
    That’s a very uncharitable reading.
    I have made my mark in the world by exploiting the Achilles’ heels of “authority figures” (which is usually just some form of a lack of empathy). I have caused a few to fall, I’ve made others reform, and I’m just an annoyance to many others. I have trained others to do the same.
    That said, I could get whacked out of existence figuratively or literally if I crossed the wrong person or group.
    There are others like me, but (as I mentioned before) we aren’t always easy to find.
    I know the above may seem grandiose, but I’ve had a chip on my shoulder about these “authority figures” since I was a kid. I’ve done something about it, but I also didn’t choose to bang my head against a wall and call it progress.
    piloto_ciego · 1790305521 · focus · HN ↗
    I think that's exactly what it reads as... I'm not trying to be a dick but, "I'll remember this and <authority-figure> will get his or her just rewards" is... I don't know, like I said, it reads like "well I ran up against a wall so I decided to give up and wait for a different wall."
    Uncharitable, maybe. But, yeah, you should definitely stand up for yourself more.
    csa · 1790311104 · focus · HN ↗
    Two points of unsolicited advice:
    1. You may want to work on your reading comprehension skills.
    2. You would probably benefit from being more curious and less certain.
    piloto_ciego · 1790312390 · focus · HN ↗
    One point of unsolicited advice:
    Making yourself feel better about giving up does not constitute actually doing anything.
  2. csa · 1790279796 · focus · HN ↗
    > However, I would fear that the issue with home-schooling would manifest: that the rarified atmosphere would render them incapable of engaging or coping with the brutal reality of binary-minded Authority figures and hierarchical social constructs in their work and life in the 'real world'.
    Having been to a school like that, I agree with you. I had to learn those lessons quickly.
    I largely opted out of being in the middle of that world, but I am still adjacent to it due to its ubiquitousness.
  3. BeetleB · 1790286343 · focus · HN ↗
    > However, I would fear that the issue with home-schooling would manifest: that the rarified atmosphere would render them incapable of engaging or coping with the brutal reality of binary-minded Authority figures and hierarchical social constructs in their work and life in the 'real world'.
    This keeps coming up every time, and it's always pointed out that there is scant evidence supporting this view at a large scale.
    Every motivated parent I know who homeschooled his kid didn't deal with these problems.
    And plenty of those who went to a traditional school did. They aren't even outliers. I'm sure anyone who went to a regular school can think of kids in their class who exhibited the problems you mentioned.
    No doubt, plenty of homeschooled kids do as well. Just as you have a distribution for regular schooled kids, you'll get a distribution for homeschooled kids. Claims that the distributions for the latter are skewed in the "wrong" direction are never presented with evidence.
    > To writ, some of the most important lessons I learnt in school were to do with the concept of 'fairness', my own ability for emotional regulation, navigation of social hierarchies, and the symbols and signifiers of popular culture. The curriculum as a whole came a distant second.
    I went to a regular school, and none of what you say applied to me. The curriculum/instruction came first, and learned little of the former. I'm sure I'll find classmates who'll say the opposite. This sounds like a classic case of post-hoc attributions.
    graemep · 1790288543 · focus · HN ↗
    Its a weird stereotype of home education that people with no, or limited, experience have of it. It is far better preparation for the "real world" than schools are.
    chasd00 · 1790292419 · focus · HN ↗
    As a parent of two teenagers in public magnet HS (one of which is top 10 in the US) I still say homeschooling is by far the best and what my wife and I would have done if it was an option.
    Home school is best, private school if you can, public school if you must.
7. tmpz22 · 1790266812 · focus · HN ↗
  AI could either help or ruin American education. But the Department of Education is being shutdown. Many parents are relatively absent. And functionally all tech companies, and especially startups, are rapacious in pursuit of education funding.
  I think the most likely outcome is AI makes American education worse, not because if the technology, but because of the “leaders” building and implementimg it.
  1. dofm · 1790273744 · focus · HN ↗
    Not sure the US Department of Education did much that would influence this either way, except if the AI was being used to correct income-disparity effects on education.
    It doesn't mandate curriculums, choose technology, anything like that? Only recommendations.
    They might have been able to monitor its effects but they wouldn't have been able to direct its use or non-use; that's not what they did.
    Essentially it was/is an anti-discrimination organisation, making sure that states gave an education regardless of wealth/race/status.
  2. spwa4 · 1790285188 · focus · HN ↗
    Don't worry "A1" will solve it.
    If you don't understand, here's Trump's secretary of education explaining how it'll make our children excel: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xsRUk0dMJu4" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xsRUk0dMJu4
    platevoltage · 1790288755 · focus · HN ↗
    I'm sure she learned the correct term just in time for Trump to try to change it to "super-intelligence" or whatever the fuck he's doing now.
8. iambateman · 1790267081 · focus · HN ↗
  A good friend of mine works for them. It’s a weird combination of (1) probably the long-range future and (2) absolutely not going to use my kid as a test subject.
  If you believe, as I do, that half of students only achieve half of their academic potential, then experiments like this are some of the most valuable work we could do in society.
  But again, let me know how it goes in 25 years and my children can enroll my grandkids.
9. graemep · 1790287909 · focus · HN ↗
  I got the benefits of letting kids go at their own pace etc. at a fraction of the cost but with a bit of (mostly fun) effort by home educating my kids. Tutors for two subjects (three in exam terms as English language and literature are separate GCSEs), both Oxford graduates in those subjects. No AI but lots of books and other resources.
  Most kids are motivated given the right environment. Enjoying learning is natural.
  The AI element of what you describe does not appeal to me. The weekly testing and assignment to grades sounds a bit rigid too.
  Considering how much one to one human tutoring 40k an year could buy that does not sound like good value.
  1. xandrius · 1790290241 · focus · HN ↗
    I would love to home school my future (not yet born) kids, how did you get started? Any tips? Recommendations? Etc.
    goostavos · 1790302945 · focus · HN ↗
    Home schooled kid here: consider not doing it ^_^
    (although, to be fair, it was a different time. AI would have surely made it much better)
    Otterly99 · 1790327138 · focus · HN ↗
    My girlfriend was homeschooled and she would definitely have preferred to go to regular school (which she attended for high school).
    Home schooling sounds good in paper, but as much as school can suck, it is also an irreplaceable opportunity to learn to socialize, which is a much more valluable skill than knowing pre-university curriculum.
    xandrius · 1790368588 · focus · HN ↗
    You only know what you experience.
    My schooling was alright but I can imagine a much better version given different circumstances.
    graemep · 1790375575 · focus · HN ↗
    The big advantage is that you can tailor to your kids needs and interest. I dislike the term home school because its not like school, and its not all done at home. Doing school at home is IMO combining the worst of both.
    Maths and English (assuming you are in an anglophone country) are important because you need them for other things. You can make them fun and not involve too much study. Reading for pleasure, maths fro and of games, all sorts of things. You need far fewer hours of studying to learn the same amount so do not aim for school like hours.
    Encourage self-discipline and motivation. This really pays off in the long term. Have confidence and feel your way. You need to spend a lot of time with them, not teaching but guiding, encouraging, and knowing where they are. I am also love conversational learning.
    Until they need to study for exams avoid a fixed curriculum. Do lots of hands on stuff. We made circuits and soldered things, had lots of hobbies and activities. One of my favourite stories is that a senior electronic engineer worried about whether universities neglected practical skills asked a room full of junior ones when they first held a soldering iron and my daughters answer of at the age of eight startled everyone.
    Its a bit easier in the UK because home educated kids can sit the same exams as everyone else at 16 (which is the end of compulsory school here). My kids then went to a sixth form college to do A levels. You need to think about paths to qualifications and university. As they get older courses tutors and exams can get expensive but a lot cheaper than a fee paying school.
    xandrius · 1790405365 · focus · HN ↗
    Thank you! This is exactly the experience I'd love to have. I'm not thinking of using home schooling as a shortcut for certain things or to avoid interactions. I am aware that I will have to be present and, as you said, meet them where they are and guide them through it.
    One question: how did you find tutors and were they meeting physically or also online? And what subjects did you find needing tutoring?
    graemep · 1790463459 · focus · HN ↗
    Classes for drama,music and dance and some sports.
    For GCSEs/IGCSEs (UK exams schools do at 16) English literature for older one. English language and literature for younger one. Its a hard subject to mark for exam prep. Close friend who was a teacher and briefly home educated her daughter for health reasons. Also classical civilisation for which I found a tutor through recommendations. A lot of teachers make bad tutors because they find it hard to switch from classroom teaching.
    Enthusiastic subject specialists are great for older kids. Both our tutors went to Oxford - and my younger daughter starts her degree there in next month.
    I did not mean to imply you were looking for shortcuts or to avoid interactions, but wanted to emphasise the importance. The extra time with your kids in incredibly rewarding too.
    I have some blog posts on the subject. This might be of interest <a href="https://pietersz.co.uk/2021/01/there-is-no-home-education" rel="nofollow">https://pietersz.co.uk/2021/01/there-is-no-home-education and some posts here: <a href="https://pietersz.co.uk/category/life/parenting" rel="nofollow">https://pietersz.co.uk/category/life/parenting
10. paimapi · 1790288300 · focus · HN ↗
  this is a classic confounder problem. I'm assuming the vast majority of parents who can afford 40k annual for their kids are relatively well off, have a lot of other disposable income, and the kid is never really lacking for any needs. put them in a public school and it's likely they'll turn out equally ahead for their grade
  socioeconomic status (SES) is very often a huge confounder when it comes to anything from health issues, educational outcomes, and many other things. rich kids do better - the SES of the parents of Nobel Prize winners [0], young athletes [1], etc are all indicators of this
  [0] <a href="https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/nobel-prize-winners-far-more-likely-to-come-from-wealthy-families-highlighting-inequality-in-the-sciences/4020407.article" rel="nofollow">https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/nobel-prize-winners-far-...
  [1] <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1466853X17306077" rel="nofollow">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S14668...
11. nitwit005 · 1790289358 · focus · HN ↗
  I'd have just sat there for hours trying to trick ChatGPT into giving bomb making advice, and then disrupted the others by sharing.
  There have been many variations on this idea of "letting kids learn on their own". The basic issue is the one you highlight, which is that it works if the student is very self motivated. Most students aren't. Or rather, they're highly motivated to do other things.
  1. wongarsu · 1790291707 · focus · HN ↗
    Most children are naturally curios. The challenge is to make them curios about the things you want them to learn, and make that more interesting than finding out how to make bombs or what the consequences of sharing that with the class will be
    breezybottom · 1790299709 · focus · HN ↗
    The idea that math will ever be more interesting to kids than making bombs is laughable.
    Neywiny · 1790307472 · focus · HN ↗
    [hello FBI I am not making a bomb]
    I think if you can get into the chemistry just a bit, then the math behind the chemistry, it can be a vehicle. I mean it's the same with programming. Why write code (boring, yuck) when you could play video games? Then the kids see code makes video games. Suddenly you have all these programs with kids making Minecraft mods or whatever. But finding each child's "bomb" would be hard for a teacher to do, especially with a common curriculum
  2. zhivota · 1790294128 · focus · HN ↗
    Alpha doesn't use a chatbot, it's still a multiple choice / text input into a box type of thing, I don't even think it's AI graded, though the questions may be AI generated, I'm not sure about that.
    In the early days they were using off the shelf curriculum software and layering their own steering AI over it.
12. tastyfreeze · 1790292042 · focus · HN ↗
  I have found for many young kids lack of studiousness is not that they are not self-motivated. It is that whatever is being taught is worse than boring to them. The lack of motivation in schools comes from a lack of interest or too slow of pacing.
  By the time they get out of primary school most have had the curiosity that drives motivation beat out of them.
  1. atoav · 1790306554 · focus · HN ↗
    Yet, when I go through the skills and knowledge acquired during my school education there are many bits in there that I am now eternally grateful for, that I did not understand the need for as a kid.
    I am not sure where I would have ended up if left to my own devices, e.g. as a kid starting first class I was bad at languages and hated it with a passion, in the last class I had the single best German and English final exams in my school district and language had grown on me.
    tastyfreeze · 1790475473 · focus · HN ↗
    This is where the idea of teachers as guides comes in. Let the kids find what interests them. The guides facilitate deeper learning as it is needed to understand more. The goal is to foster the curiosity. Learning is a byproduct.
13. sjducb · 1790329414 · focus · HN ↗
  Alpha school struggles with the kids who are a bit slow.
  If you’re the sort of kid who gets everything right first go then you join the “rocket ship” and spend 2hrs a day with AI then play for the rest of the day. You would do well in any school.
  If you don’t get it right quickly then you join the “Pirate Ship” and have to spend all day grinding and obeying AI while your friends play. It seems pretty terrible.
  <a href="https://buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com/p/fourth-report-former-alpha-school" rel="nofollow">https://buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com/p/fourth-report...
14. hackernud3s · 1790374190 · focus · HN ↗
  Ambivalent. You are ambivalent about the model: Having mixed, contradictory, or opposing feelings about someone or something at the same time.

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