2x outcomes with 2-hour school day - Revolution or Boutique?

I just listened to a thought-provoking Invest Like The Best conversation with Joe Liemandt, Principal at Alpha School and longtime tech innovator (link in 1st comment).

Joe’s wild bet: kids can learn 10x faster with AI. At Alpha School students learn only 2 hours a day and achieve 2x learning outcomes. Their “secret sauce”: adults as coaches, incentive-driven motivation, AI tutors.

One observation Joe nailed: AI finally enables schools to implement the Science of Learning. Spaced repetition, personalized pathways, zone of proximal development, adaptive feedback - all researched for decades, but lost in translation. AI has the potential to put them into practice at scale.

But here’s my excited skeptic take: Alpha is a boutique. It doesn’t translate as-is to public schools.

Schools are built for scale. They operate under regulation. They serve diverse communities, families, and students. Restarting education isn’t an option.

The real opportunity is in weaving the Science of Learning into classrooms step by step. Not moonshots, but curriculum teachers love using, which gradually embeds research-based AI-powered practices.

As Bill Gates said: “We tend to overestimate what will change in the next 2 years and underestimate what will change in the next 10.”

Alpha shows what’s possible. At NovoDia, our mission is to bridge boutique revolutions into scalable evolution. Helping districts adapt gradually, with durable impact.

The question is: How do we turn boutique revolutions into scalable evolution for millions of public school students?