Why Alpha's $75k AI tutors might actually work

alpha school is expanding across the us with a model replacing traditional instruction with two hours of daily ai tutoring, citing data showing traditional schools fail to prevent students from outsourcing critical thinking to ai. the school tracks engagement to adjust lessons in real time and pays teachers six-figure salaries to act as coaches rather than lecturers, appealing to wealthy parents in tech and finance. this creates a new educational tier where ai fluency is bought, contrasting with studies showing general student performance drops when ai use is unguided. the trend suggests elite education is pivoting to human-ai integration as a core competency.