Student lesson plans built and personalized by artificial intelligence. Just two hours of classes daily. Frog dissections, defusing bombs, and ascents of Mount Everest — all in virtual reality. And teachers who transform from traditional instructors into “guides.” Chalkbeat Philadelphia writes about the vision MacKenzie Price has for a new cyber charter school in Pennsylvania.
According to Price, her AI-powered model boosts students’ academic performance so much that they — and their guides — are free to spurn traditional classes for several hours of the school day and pursue other activities instead. The tech entrepreneur says her program will revolutionize education, and she says she has the numbers to back it up.
Several other states, though, have reviewed her pitch and rejected it. She’s had to clarify her claim about whether her schools really employ traditional teachers; in Pennsylvania at least, they would. Critics argue what she’s selling is based on selective data from expensive private schools. And there is deep skeptical that the core teaching method holds up to scrutiny.
Schools nationwide are trying to incorporate AI-powered instruction into the traditional teacher-in-front-of-the-classroom format. Price wants to blow that format up and put AI in the lesson-planning driver’s seat. She’s zeroed in on Pennsylvania because it’s become the cyber charter capital of the nation, with 60,000 students enrolled full time in cyber charters in 2023-24.
The backbone of Price’s schools is 2 Hour Learning — a model she co-founded that relies on a mix of proprietary AI tutoring software and third-party apps like Khan Academy, IXL, and Amplify.
She also co-founded the Alpha School in 2014, a group of affiliated private schools which are built around 2 Hour Learning. The platform is also used at other specialized schools Price is associated with that serve gifted and talented students, students pursuing sports, and refugees.
Price has sought to start two charter schools in Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Department of Education will decide on whether to give Price’s plan for a cyber charter, Unbound Academy, the green light.
Recent news might block that application: The Lancaster school district administration recently advised their school board to reject a proposal to open a brick-and-mortar charter school called Valenta Academy that would use 2 Hour Learning.
The school board is scheduled to vote on the school’s application “at a later date” according to a spokesperson. (Valenta Academy is also operating as a private microschool in Bastrop, Texas.)
Both Unbound and Valenta schools would run on the 2 Hour Learning model, although it’s Price’s Unbound Academy cyber charter school that is in the center of attention.
According to the school’s Pennsylvania application, Unbound Academy would launch in the fall of 2025 with 500 students in grades 4-8 and only four teachers. By its fifth year, Unbound plans to enroll 2,500 students and 76 teachers. The application projects a 90% student retention rate each year — much higher than other cyber charters have projected in their applications.
Price says with AI driving each student’s learning, all lessons will fit individual needs. A fifth grader who struggles with reading but excels in math may receive AI instruction for reading at a fourth grade level but 25 minutes later may be doing pre-algebra work. That’s something traditional grade-level schools aren’t set up to do for every student, she says.
“We have removed the teacher from the front of the classroom. No one has ever dared to do this before,” reads a promotional booklet on 2 Hour Learning. “Imagine starting a school and declaring, ‘We won’t have any academic teachers.’ We did exactly that!”
But Price acknowledges: “We have teachers. Teachers are critical to any education system.”
The application for Unbound Academy says candidates for the “guide” role must have a bachelor’s degree and hold a valid Pennsylvania teaching certificate to adhere to state teacher certification requirements.
Nevertheless, Price’s model is getting pushback.
“We will not accept districts using AI to supplant the critical role of teachers, specialists and support staff in the classroom,” says Arthur Steinberg, president of both the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of Teachers’ Pennsylvania affiliate. “There are far too many examples of AI products failing badly… states must exercise extreme prudence when considering new AI-based models and schemes.”
Unbound’s application repeatedly cites results from the Alpha private schools showing their students not only learn content “twice as fast” as their peers but can also rapidly learn any grade-level content they may be behind on.
“The results that I’ve been able to get from our schools have been absolutely phenomenal,” Price says.
Cyber charter operators in Pennsylvania have told Chalkbeat their students’ test scores “can’t and shouldn’t be compared to brick-and-mortar school scores.” Cyber charter students frequently move in and out of virtual learning environments. Many may be dealing with bullying, mental health issues, family instability, or physical health constraints. In short: They’re different from typical tuition-paying private school students.
Yet Price believes her 2 Hour Learning technique can work for anyone and can work in traditional public schools too.
Supporters of traditional public schools say there’s too much uncertainty embedded in Price’s proposals. Unbound’s cyber model is unproven and “does not have a track record,” says Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, a group that is critical of charter schools.
Susan Spicka, executive director of the Education Voters PA advocacy group, rejected Price’s idea that the day-to-day work of being a classroom teacher is something that can be minimized by or subordinated to AI.
“There are a lot of very highly qualified, excellent teachers in Pennsylvania who teach at cyber charter schools, and they struggle to help students succeed when they are sitting at home on a computer in the online environment,” Spicka says. “It’s hard for kids to learn at home.
Price is already thinking bigger than Pennsylvania.
She says if the Trump administration “called me up and asked, ‘what would you do if you were in charge of K-12 education’?” she’d tell them to embrace “personalized learning technology” — like 2 Hour Learning.
Chalkbeat Philadelphia
