@wired: In the fall of 2025, top executives from Alpha School gathered a group of wealthy New York City parents at a series of information sessions in lower Manhattan to pitch them on the company’s new campus. The events, some of which were hosted by Alpha cofounder MacKenzie Price and its billionaire principal, Joe Liemandt, were designed to show how Alpha was “redefining school” through AI-powered learning models. The goal: persuade families to ditch the city’s traditional education system and join what Alpha initially called “the most forward-thinking private school in New York.” The pitch seems to have worked. This school year, more than a dozen families have been sending their children to the sixth and seventh floors of the skyscraper at 180 Maiden Lane. According to the current Alpha New York webpage, the “school day” runs from 8:15 am to 4:00 pm, and the stated “tuition” is $65,000 a year. (Founding families received a discount.) As Price told the Free Press in May, “Alpha is a product as a school that is catering to a certain demographic,” and “it is a premium, expensive private school.” Except the Maiden Lane campus isn’t really a school. Late last summer, months before many of the info sessions, the New York State Education Department declined to approve Alpha’s request to incorporate as an independent school, according to a previously unreported copy of the decision obtained by WIRED. “Our New York location is a homeschooling learning center, not a school, and every parent whose child participates in that program knows it,” Alpha wrote in a statement to WIRED. “Alpha Schools operates in full compliance with all applicable laws.” As the AI-infused education company continues its nationwide expansion, from Manhattan to Miami to San Francisco, WIRED has obtained internal documents that reveal its strategy: “Opening date > safety.” Tap the 🔗 in bio to read the full story. 🎨: Elena Lacey; Getty Images

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