Switzerland has unveiled Apertus, an open-source large language model created through collaboration between the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich), and the Swiss…

AUSTIN (Nexstar) — U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon toured an Austin private school on Tuesday, which claims it helps students “Learn 2x in 2 Hours.”

Alpha School Austin

Alpha School Austin is part of an upstart network of Alpha Schools across the country, focused on using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help students progress through their coursework faster.

“Fundamentally, we believe that kids are limitless,” co-founder MacKenzie Price said. “When kids receive personalized learning that goes at their pace and level, their learning is able to go exponentially faster than in a traditional classroom.”

Instead of ‘teachers,’ students at Alpha School Austin are supervised by ‘guides,’ who help lead them through their abbreviated coursework. During the course of McMahon’s tour, students were completing rapid-fire math problems, designing a mini gold course and cooking.

“[Teaching two hours a day] begs the question, ‘what do you do with the rest of the school day?’” Price said. “We want our students to learn life skills, the skills that are going to help them be successful when they’re out in the real world.”

Despite having one-third of the classroom instruction, Alpha said their students are showing high levels of student achievement.

“We provide NWEA MAP (Northwest Evaluation Association Measures of Academic Progress) testing assessments three times a year in order to measure our students’ progress,” Price said. “Our classes are ranged in the top 1% in all subjects, all grade levels, with the exception of fifth grade math—which was 93rd percentile.”

The AI part of learning only accounts for about 10% of a student’s success, Price admits. It also isn’t for everyone, with Price saying it works for about 80-90% of students.

“Sometimes we see families who prefer a classical education model, or we see students who maybe want a more traditional experience,” Price said. “But it’s very rare.”

Head of U.S. Education and Head of Texas Education visit

After the tour, McMahon and Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath attended a roundtable featuring Price and several other Alpha school stakeholders. They heard from current parents, students, ‘guides’ and an alumna.

“I was very impressed,” McMahon said after the visit. “It’s just incredibly inspirational to see how quickly they can learn.”

McMahon and Morath are the heads of public education at the federal and state level, respectively. However, they hope to draw inspiration from the $40,000-a-year private school.

“What I’m doing right now is going around the country to see best practices,” McMahon said. “What I would like to do is to develop tool kits to leave behind with schools or with states and say ‘these are some best practices I think that I’ve come in contact with around the country. Not that I would write them—but there would be people knowledgeable to write them so they could be utilized and say ‘this is not a mandate. You don’t have to do this. This is where it’s worked.”

“If you look at the Texas Constitution, it calls for a general diffusion of knowledge,” Morath said. “Our goal is to make sure that children have access to great schools regardless of how who runs it, regardless of the label on the outside of the building. And so there are lessons to be learned in a school like Alpha that we’re visiting today. There are lessons to be learned from traditional public schools. If you look across the spectrum of the 9,000 public schools that run in Texas, you see tremendous diversity of educational models, of curricular design, of the way that teachers are supported and provide support to students we have to learn these lessons. How else do we improve the quality of education for our young people?”

Of course, not everyone can afford a school as expensive as Alpha. Even with the full amount provided for families through Texas’s incoming Education Savings Accounts would only cover 1/4th of the annual tuition cost. However, Alpha School officials argue the model can be implemented in other schools at a low cost.

“I could do this model of education in a tent as long as I had internet,” Price said. “It’s not about the building. It’s about what happens inside the building. That’s the thing that matters. I think it’s time for us all to hold ourselves accountable for delivering better to these kids and I think using artificial intelligence is what enables us to raise human intelligence.”

Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KXAN Austin.