Alpha, and where I get off the bus

Axios reports Alpha School is expanding from about a dozen campuses to fifty this year, at $45,000 to $75,000 US a head.

I've quoted Alpha more than almost anyone in Australia, the 2+4 day in my Blueprint came straight from watching what they proved possible, so I should say clearly where I get off the bus.

The evidence isn't there. Alpha publishes MAP results in the 90th-plus percentiles, but those are Alpha's own numbers, submitted by Alpha and never independently audited.

The MIT and Harvard research partnerships exist, though at least one is funded by a gift from Alpha itself, which is not what independence looks like. And WIRED has now run two investigations describing kids working through lunch to hit their metrics, and monitoring software following them home. None of that makes the shape of the day wrong.

It makes the claims about it unverified, and I've been sloppy about that distinction. I still think Alpha proved the thing that matters, that a different shape of school day is viable.

An Australian version just has to publish its data, let outsiders audit it, and never build a place where a nine year old skips lunch for a metric.