Alpha Rizzi’s New York City campus costs $65,000 a year — but it’s not actually a school

In the fall Starting in 2025, top executives from Alpha School have gathered a group of wealthy New York City parents for a series of information sessions in lower Manhattan to showcase the company’s new campus. These events, some of which were hosted by Alpha co-founder Mackenzie Price and its billionaire CEO Joe Leimandt, were designed to show how Alpha was “redefining school” through AI-powered learning models. The goal: to convince families to abandon the city’s traditional education system and join what Alpha initially called “the most progressive private school in New York.”

The pitch seems to have worked. This school year, more than a dozen families sent their children to the sixth and seventh floors of the skyscraper at 180 Maiden Lane. According to Alpha New York’s current web page, the “school day” runs from 8:15 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., and the stated “tuition” is $65,000 per year. (Founding families received a discount.) Depending on the price He told the Free Press In May, “Alpha is a product as a school that caters to a specific demographic,” and “It is a premium, expensive private school.”

Except that the Maiden Lane campus isn’t actually a school. Late last summer, months before several information sessions, the New York State Department of Education refused to approve Alpha’s application to merge as a charter school, according to a previously unreported copy of the decision obtained by WIRED. “Instruction as proposed occurs primarily online, with an artificial intelligence-based platform called 2 Hour Learning™ that provides instruction in core academic subjects with little or no supervision or a competent teacher providing such instruction,” the department’s counsel office wrote. “In general, (NYSED) does not recognize online schools as proposed.”

About a week later, in a post on X, Alpha invited parents to an information session about the Maiden Lane location, which the post called the “Alpha Anywhere Center.” Alpha Anywhere is the company’s product line for homeschooling, which is advertised at a starting price of about $10,000 per year. Although the company’s marketing materials do not explicitly state it, parents who enroll their children at the Maiden Lane campus will be required to provide official documentation to enroll as homeschoolers.

Illustration: Elena Lacy/Getty Images

After WIRED began reaching out to Alpha employees for this story in April, the company resubmitted its application to establish itself as a school. That order is pending, according to NYSED. Under state law, even if Alpha gets permission from the agency to incorporate as a school, it still must prove to New York City public school authorities that it provides education in core subjects that is at least “substantially equivalent” to education in the city’s public schools. And it will have to do so at a time when a New York City high school administrator has described AI as “artificial intelligence.” “invasive technology” Parents and teachers have called for more restrictions on how students use artificial intelligence in their courses.

As did WIRED I mentioned previouslyAlpha employs “mentors” to supervise the classroom. These adults do not teach academics themselves; It aims to motivate students to complete lessons in customized learning programmes. (“We call them mentors, coaches, and teachers,” Price said.) He said. “We use these words interchangeably.”) The company combines an app-as-a-tutor approach with a competitive rewards system. Students at some universities can earn hundreds of dollars over time for scoring well on tests or completing enough classes in one day. Resources on campus in Brownsville, Texas He previously told WIREDchildren who failed to meet their educational goals said they were prohibited from sitting in certain rooms and said they could not participate in other privileges such as attending field trips, getting toys, or eating off-campus lunches. The company claims that its model enables students to learn in just two hours of academic study twice as much as their peers in traditional schools learn in one day. This frees up students in the afternoon for workshops focusing on life skills such as grit, entrepreneurship and leadership.

WIRED spoke with multiple sources for this story who have been involved in building, establishing, and working on New Alpha Universities across the country. People familiar with the New York campus told WIRED they had concerns about how open the company would be with prospective parents about the fact that their children would not physically attend the school. “A lot of these parents are just drinking the Kool-Aid,” one person said. “Their child comes home with a new Nintendo Switch, an AI robot, and an iPad, so their child is happy, so they’re happy to see him.”

After WIRED reached out to parents who had enrolled their children in Alpha, the group responded with a joint statement saying they were aware the New York City campus was not a school but rather a “homeschool support center.” They added that they are “grateful for the positive impact Alpha Anywhere Center has had on our children and highly recommend it to families looking for an innovative, caring and inspiring learning community for their child’s homeschooling program.” The joint statement included 13 signatories and 22 people who “wanted to express their support for this message while maintaining the privacy of their children’s educational experience.” Other families contacted by WIRED did not respond for comment.