🛝 This School Replaced Teachers With AI. The Government Loved It.

Welcome to Playground Post, a bi-weekly newsletter that keeps education innovators ahead of what's next.

This week's reality check: The administration is holding up a chain of "no teachers" AI schools as the future of education, but experts at Stanford and MIT aren't buying it. Meanwhile, the AAP just dropped rigid screen time limits for the first time in a decade, and EdTech vendors are about to face tighter budgets, new privacy rules, and fewer federal cybersecurity resources all at once.

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💎 Data Gem

U.S. university students report higher satisfaction with traditional search engines than generative AI tools for academic work, though preferences vary by frequency of use and student subgroup, according to a new study published on arXiv.

A School With No Teachers, No Homework, and the Government's Full Support

Alpha School teaches K-12 students academics using AI for two hours a day. There are no teachers, no homework, and no textbooks. 

Just software, headsets, and human "guides" who are explicitly prohibited from teaching.

U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon visited the Austin campus last year as part of a 50-state tour. "There is so much to do, so much opportunity that I'm just seeing here," she declared. A Department of Education spokesperson told CNN that Alpha is "reimagining K-12 education."

The school charges $10,000 to $75,000 per year depending on location and has expanded to over a dozen campuses across the country, from Miami to San Francisco. 

Alpha claims its students learn twice as fast as peers nationally, citing results on the MAP test. But Justin Reich, director of the Teaching Systems Lab at MIT, questioned this comparison. 

MAP is primarily used by public school students from a wide range of circumstances, not students at elite private schools. "It's sort of strange to be comparing their students to students from a wide variety of very challenging circumstances," Reich said.

Here's the bigger problem: Alpha has refused to allow any independent research to evaluate its claims. Victor Lee, an associate professor at Stanford's Graduate School of Education, called this a major red flag. "That sort of behavior sort of implies there's something to hide," he said, adding that he found some of Alpha's claims of success "dubious."

Some parents have raised concerns too. 

According to documents from the 2023-2024 school year reviewed by CNN, about half a dozen families at the Brownsville campus voiced issues with the school's reliance on apps as sole teachers, lack of human teaching support, and the anxiety that AI-set metrics placed on children. 

Some children were staying up late to boost their metrics, leading to tears and stress, parents reported.

Jessica Lopez, who withdrew her two daughters in 2024, told CNN she discovered the girls had fallen behind after enrolling them in public school. "They were doing what the school wanted them to do. In the end, it really wasn't out of joy," she said.

Alpha has said the Brownsville campus has changed dramatically since then and "bears no resemblance to the school model today." The company declined CNN's months-long requests to visit campuses or interview its co-founder for this story.

For education innovators, the Alpha story is a cautionary signal, not an endorsement.

AI has genuine potential in education. But the market opportunity is in AI that augments teachers, not replaces them. Products that give educators time back through lesson planning, grading, and differentiation tools have demonstrable demand.

The AAP Just Dropped Screen Time Limits

For the first time in a decade, the American Academy of Pediatrics has updated its guidance on children's screen time. 

The biggest change: no set time limit.

In 2016, the AAP recommended a maximum of two hours per day. In 2026, the organization acknowledged that recommendation has become unworkable.

"The recommendations historically made to parents have become almost impossible," said Libby Milkovich, a co-author of the report.

The original guidance was built on TV research. A decade later, screens are everywhere: classrooms, restaurants, airplanes. Most schools now run 1:1 device programs and rely on digital textbooks. 

Asking parents to bear all the responsibility for limiting screen exposure no longer makes sense, the AAP argues.

Instead of a number, the AAP now recommends a framework. The new technical report and policy statement introduce a "digital ecosystems" lens that considers what children are consuming, why they're consuming it, and how families can manage media together.

Practical recommendations include reviewing content quality through Common Sense Media, offering replacement activities rather than simply cutting screens, sharing a family tablet instead of giving each child their own, and creating a "family media plan" where the whole household sets boundaries together.

"It's not 'how to regulate screen time,' but it's how to use them as a family," Milkovich said. "Parents: Make sure you're modeling good behaviors, because that's how kids are learning."

The AAP also emphasized that the burden shouldn't fall on parents alone. 

Part of the new policy's purpose is to "take away some pressure of putting it on parents and taking away the shame, when it's really all these systems and digital media devices themselves," Milkovich explained.

For education entrepreneurs, there's immediate demand for content quality assessment tools that help families and schools evaluate whether the apps and programs children use are genuinely educational. 

Family media planning platforms that make it easy for households to set and track shared digital boundaries could find an audience well beyond early adopters, especially now that the AAP is actively recommending this approach.

EdTech Faces Its Toughest Year

Three converging pressures are about to reshape the EdTech landscape in 2026, according to K-12 technology experts.

First, budgets are tightening. As enrollment continues to decline, school districts face harder choices about which technology to keep and which to cut. 

Keith Krueger, CEO of the Consortium for School Networking, expects schools will soon have to pay for AI tools that were previously offered free. Denver Public Schools is already carving out local funding to pay for MagicSchool AI based on teacher demand, and is applying for grants to fund additional AI initiatives.

Second, accountability is increasing. In April, companies must begin fully complying with updates to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule. 

The revised COPPA rule requires vendors to provide direct notice to schools about how they collect and use children's data, and prohibits companies from holding children's data indefinitely. On top of that, 18 bills proposing new federal online protections for children advanced to the full House Energy and Commerce Committee in December.

Third, cybersecurity resources are disappearing. The administration eliminated key federal support for school cybersecurity in 2025, including discontinuing K-12 programs at the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center that provided free monitoring and threat-blocking. 

The closure of the Office of Educational Technology and the shuttering of cybersecurity work groups at the departments of Education and Homeland Security left districts more exposed.

"So unfortunately, more and more school districts and states are on their own to figure this out," Krueger said, warning that schools will become more vulnerable to cyberattacks this year.

For education innovators, the convergence of these three pressures creates a defining moment. 

Privacy compliance tools and consulting services that help EdTech companies navigate the updated COPPA rules are an immediate need, since April's deadline is weeks away. Affordable, AI-powered cybersecurity solutions designed specifically for resource-strapped school districts could fill the gap left by disappearing federal programs.

⚡️More Quick Hits

This week in education:

• Educators sue over ICE activity on school grounds — Minnesota schools report agents staging enforcement operations from parking lots and pulling over district vans

• Child care crisis could strain teacher retention — Replacing one teacher costs large districts $25,000, and rising child care costs are making it harder for educators who are parents to stay in the profession

• FAFSA completions for class of 2026 outpacing last year by 52% — 1.6 million applications submitted as of late January, with the Education Department crediting an earlier release date and streamlined process

• California governor's budget addresses rising special education enrollment — Budget proposal responds to growing numbers of students qualifying for special education services statewide

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