Remember that one teacher who made going to school fun and inspired you to pursue your passions? Students at a new charter school in Arizona won’t, because they don’t get to have teachers. Instead, the two hours of academic instruction they receive each day—yes, just two hours—will be directed entirely by AI.
By a 4-3 margin, the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools on Monday approved an application from Unbound Academy to open a fully online school serving grades four through eight. Unbound already operates a private school that uses its AI-dependent “2hr Learning” model in Texas and is currently applying to open similar schools in Arkansas and Utah.
Under the 2hr Learning model, students spend just two hours a day using personalized learning programs from companies like IXL and Khan Academy. “As students work through lessons on subjects like math, reading, and science, the AI system will analyze their responses, time spent on tasks, and even emotional cues to optimize the difficulty and presentation of content,” according to Unbound’s charter school application in Arizona. “This ensures that each student is consistently challenged at their optimal level, preventing boredom or frustration.”
Spending less time on traditional curriculum frees up the rest of students’ days for life-skill workshops that cover “financial literacy, public speaking, goal setting, entrepreneurship, critical thinking, and creative problem-solving,” according to the Arizona application.
Teachers are replaced by “guides” who lead those workshops.
The student handbook for the Alpha School, the charter school Unbound’s founders operate in Texas, claims that its students “learn twice as much as standard school students while only spending 2 hours per day on academics.”
Thanks to financial support and lobbying by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, many public and private schools have integrated personalized learning software like IXL and Khan Academy into their teacher-led curriculum, although experts have questioned whether the programs provide the educational boosts they boast about in marketing material.
In its Arizona application, Unbound says its bold claims about how much its students will learn are based on the experiment it’s running on students in Texas, inspired by Elon Musk.
“The founders of Unbound Academic Institute began with opening a high-end private school, Alpha, for the same reason Elon Musk started with higher-end Teslas: to create a product that generates insights and funding for future research and development,” the company wrote in its application.
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