How Fragile Knowledge Exposes the Limits of AI-Powered Teaching

Fifty campaigns, twenty-seven new ones in one fall, tuition fees of up to seventy-five thousand dollars a year and a public statement from the school's founder that the goal is to reach one billion children. These are the figures of the expansion of Alpha School, the network of private schools that assigns most of the morning instruction to adaptive learning software. In the same country, one in five students is considered absent from the classroom for years and reading and math performance has been declining for a decade. The argument in favor of the method sounds logical on this background. The objection, however, is not about whether the technology works at the grade level but whether what it produces is durable understanding or fragile knowledge.