How Alpha School Is Bringing A.I. to the Classroom | EP 152

This week, we check in on the state of artificial intelligence in education. We talk with a co-founder of Alpha Schools, MacKenzie Price, about how her private K-12 schools are using A.I. to generate personalized lesson plans and enabling teachers to spend their time motivating rather than teaching students. Then, the Princeton historian D. Graham Burnett joins us to discuss the existential threat that A.I. poses to the traditional humanities degree and why he believes we’ll see thousands of new schools emerge outside the university system to carry on the exploration of what it means to be a person in the world. And finally, we hear directly from students who are on the front line of technological change.

Guests:
MacKenzie Price, co-founder of Alpha Schools
https://2hourlearning.com/founder/

D. Graham Burnett, historian of science and technology at Princeton University
https://history.princeton.edu/people/...

Additional Reading:

A.I.-Driven Education: Founded in Texas and Coming to a School Near You
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/us...

Will the Humanities Survive Artificial Intelligence?
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the...

OpenAI and Microsoft Bankroll New A.I. Training for Teachers
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/08/te...

Welcome to Campus. Here’s Your ChatGPT.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/te...

Chapters:
00:00:00 - Coming up
00:00:56 - It's time for back-to-school
00:01:36 - This week on the show
00:02:02 - MacKenzie Price on alternative schooling with A.I.
00:28:31 - D. Graham Burnett on college humanities and the end of literacy
00:52:07 - Listener Mailbag: Students tell us how they feel about A.I. at school

Hard Fork is a weekly look into the future that's already here. Hosts Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore stories from the bleeding edge of tech.
Casey’s publication, Platformer: https://www.platformer.news/


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Credits
“Hard Fork” is hosted by Kevin Roose and Casey Newton. Produced by Rachel Cohn and Whitney Jones. Engineering by Alyssa Jane Moxley and original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Sophia Lanman and Rowan Niemisto. Fact-checking by Caitlin Love. Our executive producer is Jen Poyant. Video production by Chris Schodt, Sawyer Roque, and Jake Nicol. Video QC by Isabella Anderson. Podcast Art Direction by Benjamin Wilkerson Tousley. Podcast Art & Animations by Julian Hespenheide. Additional Motion graphics by Phil Robibero. Thumbnails by Julia Moburg, Elizabeth Bristow, and Yvonne Stender. Special thanks to Paula Szuchman, Pui-Wing Tam, Niko Gallogly, Kate LoPresti and Jeffrey Miranda