Make money doing the work you believe in
Maybe it’s because I just listened to Amanda Montell’s Cultish (highly recommend)while caulking and painting my shed last week, but the linguistic spins and “her daughters told her school was boring” origin story surrounding Alpha Schools land as a pit in my stomach (alpha.school/author/mac…).
[And that name. Reads as a Dystopian Novel that isn’t sure if it wants to lean sexy werewolf Hogwarts or lone wolves training to rip your throat out. Nothing to do with a collective good.]
Todd Feathers wrote about Alpha Schools for WIRED and many others have picked up on it (just search Substack or the general internet for Alpha Schools). Todd's own LinkedIn post states he draws on internal records and interviews with people who built out Alpha's locations. One source described the internal culture: "Instead of 'How do we create the best spaces for our kids?' it's 'What can we get away with?'" linkedin.com/posts/todd…
And now (rich) NYC families can enroll their high schoolers from 8:15-5:00 (see founders.school) and be mentored to make a million dollars as a business? Who owns that Intellectual Property? And the profit? This feels gross.
Pennsylvania denied a charter application modeled from Alpha called Unbound Academy. A footnote in the rejection names the language as odd: “Although the Application refers to educators employed at Unbound Academic as 'guides,' educators are referred to in Pennsylvania law and regulation as 'teachers,' 'professionals,' or 'paraprofessionals’” (p.2 of PA DOE Denial)…this type of community-specific language is exactly what Amanda Montell points to. (Might be worth an episode, Amanda. I think a lot of folks would tune in.)
I’m a public school teacher, not an investigative journalist, but there are some fishy things happening recently…including learning scientists I respect appearing to align with this model.
Names the link from Alpha to Unbound Academy: wng.org/roundups/the-ar…
PA DOE Rejection:
Coverage of PA DOE Denial
