Can AI Replace Teachers? Using AI to Unleash Students and Transform Teaching: A Case Study of Alpha School

This paper examines whether AI can replace teachers by conducting a document-based case study of Alpha School, drawing exclusively on publicly available materials. The study addresses two research questions: (RQ1) how Alpha School's AI-centered model is described to operate, and (RQ2) what potential benefits are claimed or plausibly enabled by its design. Across sources, the model is consistently portrayed as a full-day schedule in which core academics are concentrated into an approximately two-hour morning block supported by adaptive, mastery-oriented learning software and ongoing progress monitoring, followed by afternoon workshops and project-based activities framed as life skills. Adult staff ("guides") are described as focusing primarily on motivation, routines, goal-setting, supervision, and socioemotional support rather than lecture-based instruction, traditional lesson planning, or conventional grading. Interpreted through established literature on mastery learning, one-to-one tutoring, and intelligent tutoring systems, the model suggests potential advantages such as individualized pacing, rapid feedback, and a "time dividend" that reallocates instructional time toward applied projects and broader competencies. Overall, the case indicates a reallocation of instructional functions between AI and traditional teacher roles, rather than a straightforward substitution of human educators.