✨Alpha School’s Most Inspiring Ideas—And How to Bring Them Home
Alpha School is everywhere right now.
The New York Times, The Washington Post, CBS News, WIRED, you name it. And it’s easy to see why: their model is bold, ambitious, and absolutely compelling.
I’ve been following Alpha for years—both as a homeschool parent and an edTech startup insider.
There’s a lot to admire: two-hour “school” days, kids working at their own pace, and truly individualized education. There’s no denying Alpha is doing something special.
What sets Alpha apart is how seriously they take children’s capacity to do real work today. They don’t wait until “later” to give kids responsibility, or ownership of their learning.
I’ve seen this magic in my own home. Last year, I introduced a “Curiosity Fair” to my homeschool club. What my kids did astonished me.
My 8 year old dove into our extensive fossil collection. She researched each specimen (this was quite tricky!), labeled and curated them in a box. She then created a full, enthusiastic presentation showing off everything she had learned, which included evolutionary history — again she’s EIGHT!!!
My 11 year old combined her favorite interests (history and writing) into a historical novel about a maid who changes the course of Marie Antoinette’s life—a project she’s still developing today with a writing tutor.
They did not do this for a grade. Nor for a prize. They did it because building something real is thrilling. That energy is exactly what makes Alpha’s approach so attractive.
Of course, Alpha comes with a price tag most families can’t afford (even with ESAs helping in some states). But here’s the good news: you don’t need Alpha-level money to borrow their ideas.
Today, let’s explore what Alpha gets right—and how you can bring some of their most powerful strategies into your home, without breaking the bank.
Ready? Let’s go!
✨What Alpha Gets So Beautifully Right
Alpha asked a genuinely radical question: What if money wasn’t a limiting factor? What could learning look like if we used the very best tools, teachers, and science available?
What they built is striking. You can see neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and centuries of apprenticeship wisdom woven throughout their model.
Here’s what stands out most to me—and what I’m already weaving into my own children’s lives.
✨Passion Projects, Real-World Work, & Entrepreneurship Are the Heartbeat
At Alpha, passion projects aren’t a reward or an enrichment block. They drive the day.
Students spend as little as two hours on what Alpha defines as “school”: the focused academic work needed to master math, language arts, and core knowledge (more on how they do that in a minute). That efficiency frees up entire afternoons for hands-on life skills, real-world projects, outdoor play, and deep dives into personal passions.
And the outcomes speak loudly.
One Alpha high schooler, Grace Price, created a documentary on ending cancer that ultimately led her to testify before Congress. Another high schooler, Austin Scholar (obviously a pseudonym), became deeply interested in education reform and is running a best-selling Substack and appearing on major podcasts. Both of them accomplished these feats while still in high school.
Alpha goes deeper than “follow your passions.” Students are coached how to turn their curiosity into influence—how to research, build, test ideas, connect with people, and build their ideas into something real.
Not every passion turns into a career, and not every graduate becomes a Grace or Austin—and that’s not the goal. The advantage comes from learning how to explore an idea deeply → launching projects, finding mentors, and discovering what it actually takes to make something real. Compared to the narrow world of classrooms and assignments, this kind of learning expands a child’s sense of what’s possible.
✨Automaticity First: Fill the Gaps First, Then Fly
This piece isn’t as flashy kids testifying to Congress—but it may be the most important for long-term success.
The importance of foundational knowledge can’t be overstated. Too often, children are pushed forward before they’ve mastered the basics. An 80% test score doesn’t mean “good enough.” It means 20% of the core knowledge is missing—and that missing piece compounds year after year—until you have a middle schooler that’s completely lost and thinks they are terrible at math.
Alpha, like the best learning science researchers, takes this seriously. New students start below grade level as a strategic reset to fill hidden gaps. In earlier iterations of Alpha, students were asked to start below grade level every year to refresh on past techniques—a practice they no longer do, but is actually quite provocative and something to consider doing if your child is struggling getting started.
No matter the precise implementation, cognitive science is crystal clear here: the basics must be known - COLD - in an automatic sort of way. Doing so, frees up working memory allowing kids to think more deeply, create more boldly, and handle far greater complexity. Confidence and momentum build quickly after that.
Build your house upon cement not sand indeed.
I’ve personally seen how powerful this can be. I looped my oldest back a grade in math this year to fill gaps. It was terrifying, and hard on both of us— but the impact on her confidence? Remarkable. It’s scary as a parent to slow down. But sometimes slowing down is exactly what unlocks forward motion.
✨Mentors, Internships, & Learning What You Don’t Want
Alpha explicitly teaches students how to reach out to experts, write thoughtful emails, and cultivate real-life mentor relationships.
This used to be reserved for college or early careers. But today, the entire world is accessible—if kids know how to approach it. I’m continually amazed by the caliber of people willing to engage generously in the public space - especially to help young, engaged kids.
Going alongside this, is children getting to “try-on” a career before they really decide on it.
I once heard a podcast interview with a woman who thought she wanted to be a veterinarian. Because she was homeschooled, her parents helped her shadow a large-animal vet in middle school. Within six months, she realized veterinary work mostly meant caring for sick animals—not cuddling healthy ones.
So she pivoted. At fourteen. She was now 26 and had been running her own business for nearly a decade. She could have just been discovering that she hated being a vet after spending nearly a decade in school. Instead, she tried the work early—and it changed her life.
My kids are still young, but one of my biggest goals for their high school years is real work in real fields they’re curious about. They may change direction—and that’s the point! No matter what, they’ll learn something essential.
✨Ownership of Learning & Time
Students at Alpha plan their weeks, set goals, track progress, and reflect on what’s working.
This matters more than most people realize.
Time management shapes both professional success and personal well-being. Alpha doesn’t assume kids will magically acquire these skills later—they teach them explicitly through life-skills seminars and daily practice.
Anecdotally, Alpha leaders talk about students discussing non-fiction books on productivity and personal development over lunch.
Giving kids ownership of their schedule is powerful. Teaching them how to manage it well is transformative.
✨Life Skills Aren’t Extras
Budgeting. Professional communication. Project planning. Cooking. Managing responsibilities.
These aren’t electives tacked onto the margins—they’re integrated into everyday life.
One of the clearest lessons I’ve learned from interviewing veteran homeschoolers is this: pay attention to finances and careers early. Teaching children how to earn, manage, and sustain a financial life isn’t optional. It’s foundational.
✨Not Just Teaching—Coaching
The goal isn’t to produce compliant students. It’s to raise capable humans.
Alpha can hire exceptional educators—and it shows. When students struggle, teachers don’t just correct content. They coach study habits, mindset, strategy, and resource-finding. Those skills echo for decades.
Our jobs as parents is to be a coach for our children. As I’ve shared before, my oldest is a strong writer. I wanted her working with someone who loved writing as much as she does, so I found her a writing tutor.
As Michelle Brock said on her episode How to Balance Tough Academics with Kids’ Unique Interests of the podcast: “Be a broker for your child’s education.”
Help them find the voices, mentors, and guides they need. Don’t forget though, that YOU will always be their most important teacher.
✨Technology That Actually Serves Learning
Alpha uses technology well. It’s a tool, not a babysitter.
Until recently, most learning apps were designed as supplements to learning — not as the teachers. That’s changing. Fast.
But Alpha (and other edTech startups) were at the forefront of this shift. At the beginning Alpha made use of the best public-available platforms (I’ll tell you which ones at the end). Now they’re building their own system, Timeback. Their engineers study memory, motivation, cognitive load, and spaced practice before writing a line of code.
It’s pedagogy-first. And it shows.
✨The Takeaway
Alpha isn’t interesting because it’s elite or expensive. It’s interesting because it makes visible what so many parents already sense:
Children don’t need more hours, more pressure, or more busywork.
They need mastery, meaning, mentorship, and real responsibility.
Alpha proves what’s possible when we take children seriously—and design learning around how humans actually grow.
And that, to me, is the real gift.❤️
If your family has the resources to use Alpha School, their Alpha Anywhere or in-person programs are incredible.
But if $40–75K isn’t in the cards this year (me neither), you can still take the best of Alpha and build it at home.
Below, you’ll find step-by-step guides for running Curiosity Fairs that spark months of excitement, turning simple interests into deep passion projects, resources for bringing back math and reading confidence with joyful daily practice, how to experiment with gentle entrepreneurship and mentor outreach, cultivating ownership with the “Future Me” exercises, and even leveraging the same tech Alpha loves.
PS. I also share a few things Alpha doesn’t cover, so you can give your children a truly rich, cultured education.
PSS. This resource list got so long that your email service might clip it! (sorry -not sorry) If so, it lives in full on my website. Reach out if you have trouble!