In Austin, Texas, a 12-year-old raced through eighth grade in just 80 days. His parents paid $65,000 a year for him to attend Alpha, an experimental private school where artificial intelligence (AI) tracks every click, mistake and breakthrough. For two hours each morning, he blitzes through math, history and science; the rest of the day is spent on public speaking, teamwork and emotional intelligence. His teachers aren’t lecturers but “guides,” stepping in only to fine-tune the algorithm’s personalized path.
This is not science fiction. These AI-powered schools are expanding rapidly, from Texas to California, Florida and New York. They represent a radical departure from conventional education: classrooms where AI systems, not textbooks, anchor the daily rhythm. The pitch is seductive: personalized learning, faster mastery of core subjects and more space for the human skills that machines cannot replicate. Some students complete a grade level in a few months.
But scale brings consequences. Education in America has always reflected social divides between wealthy and poor districts, private privilege and public neglect. The rise of AI schools threatens to supercharge those divides. It’s not just about faster math drills; it’s about who controls the future of learning. Will private ventures dictate, or will public schools, unions and communities shape how AI enters education?
Alpha markets itself as the future: students liberated from outdated pacing, parents dazzled by rapid progress. Yet the price tag up to $65,000 per year means this “future” is reserved for the wealthy. If only the affluent can accelerate their children’s education with AI, America risks hard-coding inequality into its schools. Public schools, already underfunded and overstretched, will be left with yesterday’s tools while elite families leap ahead.
This is not unlike the charter school movement or the rise of private universities: innovations that promised choice but often sharpened divides. Without guardrails, AI schools could turbocharge the same dynamic, producing one education for the rich and another for everyone else.
Teachers on the sidelines
The rise of AI schools challenges the role of teachers. At Alpha, teachers are rebranded as “guides,” their authority ceded to algorithms. That may sound efficient, but it raises uncomfortable questions. Who designs the AI? Who decides what knowledge matters? And what happens to unionized teachers when education is reimagined as a tech service?
Reducing teachers to assistants to machines is not just a professional insult; it risks hollowing out the human relationships that make schools anchors of democracy and community life. Parents may cheer a child’s quick progress, but education has never been only about speed. It has been about cultivating citizens, building empathy and sustaining communities, goals that cannot be outsourced to algorithms.
What the world is doing
Other countries are not standing still. China has invested billions into “smart classrooms” that integrate AI into lesson planning, homework grading and even emotional monitoring, raising profound questions about surveillance but also signaling the state’s seriousness about staying ahead. Singapore has piloted AI tutors in public schools, blending them with human teachers to reduce class sizes and personalize instruction. Finland, long admired for its egalitarian system, is experimenting with AI tools that free teachers from rote tasks so they can focus more on mentorship and creativity.
The U.S., by contrast, is letting the market take the lead. Alpha and similar ventures are shaping the debate by example, not by democratic design. Unless policymakers step in, America risks importing the inequities of its health care system into education: premium AI schooling for the few, underfunded basics for the rest.
The missing public debate
For now, AI schools operate outside the public system, but their rapid growth makes government inaction untenable. Should states regulate tuition to prevent education from becoming a luxury product? Should public schools pilot AI integration, so innovation is not left to the rich? And how will accountability work if algorithms, not teachers, grade essays and shape minds?
These questions go to the heart of American democracy. Education is meant to be the great equalizer; left unchecked, AI schools could become the great divider. They are no longer fringe experiments but scaling quickly with powerful investors. America has a narrow window: adapt the public system to harness AI responsibly or let the market decide who gets tomorrow’s education and who is stuck with yesterday’s.
The future of education won’t wait. AI schools are here. We must shape them for the public good or accept a two-tier system that betrays America’s democratic promise.
Shahin Hossain is a general fellow researching artificial intelligence and education at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s Department of Education.
