AI Should Extend Teachers, Not Replace Them

The growth of AI-first schools has made one question more urgent. Schools need to decide whether AI is meant to give teachers more reach or to remove them from the work of teaching.

What Happened This Week

Alpha Schools charges $55,000 per year for an education where AI handles instruction and human "guides" handle everything else.¹²

What These Stories Have in Common

Personalization is valuable, but learning is not only the delivery of content at the right difficulty. Students also need judgment, encouragement, accountability, and a relationship with someone who understands the larger purpose of the work.

Koan starts from a simple premise. The final answer is no longer a reliable measure of learning. Schools need to understand how students reached that answer and whether the work made them more capable.

What Schools Can Do

The strongest model keeps teachers responsible for the goals and standards of the classroom while using AI to provide students with more frequent support. AI should create more opportunities for good teaching, not fewer reasons to have teachers.

The future of education should make excellent teachers more available to every student.