Three days before Springfield students returned to classrooms this fall, a district technology official got a request he was unsure about: to install new software on 30 school computers.
The request came from a representative of Alpha School, a for-profit company that has drawn national attention for its polarizing education model. At the company’s private schools, students can be recorded round the clock as they spend roughly two hours a day learning academics through AI-powered software. The rest of the school day is dedicated to activities like public speaking and entrepreneurship.
Alpha was preparing to launch a fall pilot at Kiley Prep, a middle school within the Springfield Empowerment Zone, a cluster of public schools with broad autonomy over curricular decisions. The company planned to provide its software at no cost.
But as students returned to class that first Monday, Springfield’s senior manager of technical operations was trying to understand why the company was looking to install its software on district computers.
“Do you happen to know whether the ‘Alpha School’ company has an agreement with [Springfield Public Schools]?” Sean Fitzgerald asked the district’s IT chief in an email.
The plan to bring Alpha’s technology into Kiley Prep had been in the works for about three months. But by the start of the school year, Alpha and Empowerment Zone leaders had not finalized which technologies the middle schoolers would use or what information the company would collect about them, according to interviews and public records obtained by WBUR.
Some parents and teachers also expressed frustration that they were unaware of the plans. The pilot never launched after a district-wide cyberattack forced schools to close for four days and disrupted access to school technology.
But Springfield was only one part of Alpha’s broad push to work with Massachusetts public schools. And the company had a high-ranking state official help introduce its model to district leaders: Secretary of Education Stephen Zrike.
From private schools to public classrooms
Alpha is best known for its small, private schools where tuition can exceed $50,000 a year. The company’s first private Boston campus opened this fall.
Alpha claims its students learn “twice as much” as those in traditional schools while typically spending only two hours a day on core academics. Some parents praise the program for the personal attention their kids receive and the emphasis on teaching skills like financial literacy and teamwork that can fall through the cracks.
But Alpha has also faced a wave of criticism over its approach to teaching, which emphasizes screens over books and relies on software to track and record student activity. (Alpha refers to its extensive recordings as “game tape.”) Former employees have raised concerns about errors in the company’s AI-generated lessons and its handling of student data.
A spokesperson for Alpha defended its educational and privacy practices in a statement, saying that while student achievement under the model can vary, many families have reported significant progress. At one of its Texas private schools, she added, enrollment has more than doubled.
Springfield Empowerment Zone Co-Executive Director Matt Brunell said his discussions with Alpha began after a breakfast with company representatives in the spring. MIT’s Blueprint Labs planned to study the program, with research financially supported by Alpha. The state’s education secretary also encouraged him to consider bringing Alpha into classrooms.
In a June 10 email obtained by WBUR, Brunell told colleagues that Zrike recommended he explore bringing Alpha into Empowerment Zone classrooms.
Two days later, Zrike separately emailed roughly a dozen superintendents inviting them to a virtual presentation about the company’s instructional model.
“While the model is not without controversy, I have attended several sessions with the Alpha team and found their approach thought-provoking,” Zrike wrote in the email to superintendents.
The education secretary said he wanted to gauge interest in partnerships with the company that could start as soon as that fall.
Zrike told superintendents in the email that the presentation was optional and that Alpha’s model might not suit every district. He also noted the company’s “substantial philanthropic support.”
In a statement Monday, Zrike said his office “regularly connects districts with outside organizations that might be helpful for teachers and students,” and local leaders can decide for themselves whether they want to proceed.
He cited Saga Education, which provides academic tutoring, and several other nonprofit organizations. Unlike Alpha, their programs do not rely on AI software to replace teacher-led instruction.
“While the model is not without controversy, I have attended several sessions with the Alpha team and found their approach thought-provoking.”
Education Secretary Stephen Zrike
“These connections are meant to support innovation and strengthen public education,” he said in the statement.
Executive Director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees Glenn Koocher said it’s not unusual for these kinds of introductions to take place.
But the extent of Zrike’s outreach came as a surprise to Riley Hernandez, president of the Springfield Education Association, the local teachers union.
“We knew this was happening,” he said. “But we didn’t realize the scope.”
Hernandez said it made him question the secretary’s priorities.
“Does he represent the interests of educators who do the work every day to teach students,” Hernandez said. “Or does he represent the interests of ed tech, the interests of corporate profits, the interests of Alpha?”
Concerns mount in Springfield
As Zrike introduced Alpha representatives to superintendents across the state, plans for a pilot in Springfield were already taking shape.
Brunell said the Springfield Empowerment Zone’s low academic performance motivated its leaders to see what Alpha could offer.
“With 86 percent of students not proficient in reading and math, we cannot leave any stone unturned,” he said in an interview this month, after the pilot fell apart.
That sense of urgency helped drive interest in Alpha’s educational tools. Zone leaders planned to fully launch the pilot at a single Kiley Prep classroom by the end of September But some families and educators expressed frustration that they weren’t clued into the plans
Empowerment Zone leaders didn’t notify the Springfield Education Association, which Brunell said they’re not required to do. Families of students assigned to the pilot received notice shortly before the first day of school, while other parents said they had not been informed.
“I hate to drop this on you on the first day back with kids, but it just came to my attention that Kiley is partnering with Alpha Schools this year,” wrote the mother of a seventh grader at Kiley Prep in an email to school leaders on Aug. 23, the night before classes began. “I’m not ok with finding out about it in a manner that wasn’t from [Springfield Public Schools] nor from Kiley directly.”
The Greater Springfield NAACP also raised concerns about the timeline, parental consent and student privacy, including questions about whether the program might expand to other schools.
As Alpha representatives sought to install software for the first day of classes, an agreement governing the company’s access to student data was still under review.
On Aug. 28, an Alpha representative told Springfield Public School officials that data-sharing agreements were “almost over the finish line.” The district’s chief information officer responded that the legal team still needed to review it.
An unsigned draft memorandum of understanding obtained by WBUR restricted how Alpha could use and share student information and placed limits on using personally identifiable data to train general-purpose AI models.
The draft agreement did not establish whether Springfield students would be subject to screen recordings, webcam monitoring, microphone recordings or collection of biometric information — practices listed in Alpha’s broader privacy policy. The policy was among documents Boston Public Schools provided to WBUR in response to a public records request concerning Alpha’s application for its Beacon Hill private school, which opened this fall.
The stakes are different when families voluntarily enroll in a private school than when similar technology is introduced into public classrooms, particularly when student data is involved, said Andrew Liddell, co-founder of EdTech Law Center.
Liddell said public schools have an obligation to protect student information and should clearly explain to families what data would be collected and how it would be used.
“Were this to be implemented in a public school, it would need to be something that people apply for,” Liddell said, “and that their parents are told, ‘This is all the information that we are collecting about your family, your child and yourself. This is every possible way that we are using it. Here are the risks of how it could be misused.’ ”
Both a spokesperson for Alpha and Brunell said Zone leaders were not planning to replicate Alpha’s private school model, and they were still determining which company technologies to use when they canceled the pilot, including whether Alpha’s AI tutor would work alongside a classroom teacher.
“We weren’t starting an Alpha school,” he said.
District leaders don’t bite
Some Massachusetts superintendents expressed initial curiosity about Alpha’s approach after hearing from Secretary of Education Stephen Zrike in mid-June. District leaders from across the state attended Zrike’s June presentation including superintendents of Burlington, Peabody, Westwood, Tri-Town School Union and Newton. Some scheduled follow-up meetings.
Burlington Superintendent Eric Conti said he found the presentation “really interesting” but questioned how it would work in public schools, which have an obligation to teach all students.
“Superintendents tend to be very interested in making sure we meet the needs of all learners,” he said, “and we’re not just cutting out certain types of kids.”
Conti said Burlington had no plans to pilot Alpha’s model, which he considered well-intentioned but not “far enough along.”
Springfield Superintendent Sonia Dinnall, who is not involved with the Empowerment Zone pilot, expressed interest but wrote in an email to Zrike that she was “a little concerned about the hyperbole.”
Other district leaders told WBUR they are not pursuing partnerships with Alpha, while several declined to comment or did not respond.
In Springfield, Brunell said the Empowerment Zone pilot will not launch this school year and is highly unlikely to begin in the following.
Alpha confirmed it has no public school programs underway or in development in Massachusetts and “no plans to launch any in the near future.”
“Our focus in Massachusetts is on our private school,” a spokesperson said.
