The Texas founders of an unconventional AI-based learning model want to expand into Pennsylvania, pitching a plan for a cyber charter school that would replace teachers with software and squeeze traditional academics into 2 hours of daily instruction.

Representatives of Unbound Academic Institute Charter School, which has a pending application before state officials, say their artificial intelligence technology tailors lessons to each child and helps them master material more quickly. Compressing the typical school day into 2 hours keeps students from burning out on academics and frees up time for developing a range of other life skills, they say.

And instead of traditional teachers, the school uses educators called guides to coach students and monitor their progress. 

“Inefficiencies, a lack of personalization, and a decline in student engagement have long plagued the traditional education system ― unchanged since the Industrial Revolution,” the group says in its application, calling its philosophy a “transformative solution to these pervasive issues.”

The ideas, though, of handing teaching responsibilities to artificial intelligence and shortening classes on traditional subjects raise alarm bells for the proposal’s skeptics, who have questions about the claims of huge academic gains and accelerated learning. 

“Children do not do well in online schools,” said Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, a public schools advocacy group based in New York. “And to think that (Unbound representatives) have somehow created an online school that, in even less time, can deliver outstanding results for a diverse group of students … I don’t think is a credible claim.”

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Susan Spicka, executive director of Education Voters of Pennsylvania, also questioned the financial relationships tied up in the academy. As envisioned, the school would channel millions of dollars to an assortment of contractors linked to its founders.

“Someone needs to sign a contract on behalf of a company providing services for that school. When that person is the same person from the charter school, you have to wonder where their interests lie,” Spicka said.

The school’s applications have been rejected in Utah, North Carolina and Arkansas, and some education advocates are hoping it will meet a similar fate in the Keystone State. 

In its Pennsylvania submission, Unbound founders proposed opening this coming fall with 500 students in fourth through eighth grades. However, its representatives plan to scale up to an enrollment of 2,500 by the fifth year and, ultimately, to serve students from kindergarten through high school graduation. 

If approved, Unbound would become the commonwealth’s 15th cyber charter. The Pennsylvania Department of Education typically decides whether to accept or deny an application within 120 days of its submission, or by Jan. 29 for Unbound.

Unbound teachers are AI, humans are guides

The cyber charter’s foundational concept is 2 Hour Learning, an education philosophy created and marketed by Texas mom MacKenzie Price, who has used it in a string of private academies. 

In her telling, the impetus to create the model — which abbreviates instruction on core topics and opens up more time for fostering passions and life skills — came from a realization that her daughters found school boring. However, it’s not clear whether Price had any background in education at the time. The resume she included with various charter applications shows she earned a psychology degree from Stanford University in 1998 and does not list any teaching experience.

Over the past decade, she has implemented her philosophy in a string of Texas- and Florida-based private academies called Alpha Schools, where families typically pay $40,000 per year in tuition. 

Now, she and her associates are trying to translate the model to cyber charters, and they’ve attempted to open virtual schools in at least five states including Pennsylvania. So far, Arizona is the only state to grant them approval. 

Price’s husband, Andrew Price, is listed in the Pennsylvania application as one of Unbound’s founding members, along with five in-state residents and two administrators from Alpha schools in Texas. Neither Andrew Price nor MacKenzie Price responded to a list of questions about the school.

The cyber charter application cites test results from Alpha School students to support its claims that the model can catapult kids to the highest-achieving percentiles with a fraction of the time spent on core subjects each day. 

But Burris argues that outcomes from a pricey, in-person private school are unlikely to predict performance in an all-online charter school that must accept children of all backgrounds, including students with disabilities and special education needs. 

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At Unbound, children would spend 2 hours each morning on reading, writing, math and science — a total of 10 hours per week on subjects typically seen as the basis of a grade-school education. 

However, the school’s application says their AI-based technology will allow them to personalize lessons so students grasp the information much faster than they would in a traditional classroom. The idea is to avoid the monotony and frustration that causes many students to become disenchanted with school, the cyber charter application explains. 

“The model aims to foster a love for learning, improve academic outcomes, and prepare students for success in the rapidly changing modern world,” it states.

With reading, writing and math behind them, students can spend their afternoons exploring individual passions and practicing skills, such as financial literacy, emotional intelligence and public speaking. 

The application says the model dispenses with the traditional idea of teachers and instead uses guides, who eschew “traditional lecture-based roles” in favor of acting as “personalized mentors and coaches.”

“Guides focus on providing tailored support, fostering deep connections, and encouraging holistic student development, ensuring each learner achieves mastery in core subjects efficiently and effectively,” the document states.

Unbound wants to establish a ratio of one guide for every 33 students and is planning to scale up to 10 lead guides and 20 guides by the third year, when it projects its enrollment would reach 1,000. 

Spicka said that, while the Education Voters of PA take issue with this particular cyber charter school, Unbound’s application underscores a systemic issue the pro-public school nonprofit she helms is urging lawmakers to change.

A letter-writing campaign started by Education Voters in January calls for a moratorium on new charter school applications until the state can audit and ensure all its existing charter schools are meeting educational goals for students.

Contracts with founder’s companies

Unbound could present a lucrative opportunity for the Prices, whose businesses are pitched as contractors for the school. 

“Even if these schools are a flop four or five years down the road … they’re going to be collecting millions of dollars from Pennsylvania taxpayers,” Burris said.

“This is supposed to be a school where the focus of everything should be that the kids get the best education they can get during the years they’re in school,” Spicka said. “Instead, this application lifts the veil and shows this is all about profit-making companies coming into Pennsylvania and figuring out how they can extract money out of the system and take it for themselves.”

MacKenzie Price’s company, 2 Hour Learning, is poised to get $2.75 million, or $5,500 per student, through a one-year software licensing contract with the cyber charter, according to a draft included in the Pennsylvania application. 

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The school’s founders plan to secure general and administrative services from a company called YYYYY LLC, whose corporate documents show Andrew Price as its president and director. YYYYY has promised to provide a $650,000 grant for the cyber charter.

Andrew Price is also listed as chief financial officer of Crossover Markets, which would provide human resources help, and as director and CFO of Trilogy Enterprises Inc., which would offer financial services.

Trilogy Enterprises could charge the academy up to $350,000 per year, according to contracts included in the school’s application. Crossover Markets would get 10% of the first-year compensation package for any employee it helps recruit, although it has agreed to waive its fee for the first three years. 

Burris noted in a letter to Pennsylvania officials that these fees are higher than those included in cyber charter applications in other states: The 2 Hour Learning software was only estimated to cost $2,000 to $2,500 per student in North Carolina, $2,000 per student in Arizona and $2,000 per student in Arkansas, according to applications filed in those states. 

Trilogy’s services are also capped at $150,000 each year in the other states, less than half the amount listed in the Pennsylvania cyber charter application. 

However, the application says there will be a firewall between the cyber charter’s governance structure and the Prices’ financial interests. 

Though Andrew Price is one of the cyber charter’s founding members, he would not sit on the board of trustees, which would be composed entirely of Pennsylvania residents “fully independent of any vendors providing services to the school,” the submission states. 

Susan DeJarnatt, a Temple University law professor who has studied charter school finances, said Andrew Price’s absence from the trustees board does not eliminate concerns. Even if a particular proposal doesn’t cross any ethical or legal lines, she said, state officials should pay attention if a school’s structure “invites potential problems.”

Bethany Rodgers is a USA TODAY Network Pennsylvania capital bureau investigative journalist.