Austin Scholar #170: How Alpha kindergarten became a top 0.01% program in America
& my summer investing journey
Hey, y'all!
This week from Austin Scholar...
How Alpha kindergarten became a top 0.01% program in America
Scholar’s Sources: What I’ve been thinking about…
By the time you’re reading this, I’ll be on a plane going to London! For the next week, I’m working on a super secret project with David Perell and his team, and I can’t wait to share what I learn with y’all. I’ve traveled quite a bit – a lot of it by myself – but this is definitely going to be a new experience: nine days in the UK working on a project that will take me all around London pretty much by myself. It will absolutely test my international travel-savviness. But I truly can’t wait for this experience, and I’ll have some down time to explore, so if you have any recommendations on things to do or places to eat please let me know!
How Alpha kindergarten became a top 0.01% program in America
I started at Alpha in the 3rd grade. When Alpha first started, it didn't have a kindergarten. Everyone – the founders included – believed five and six -year-olds were too young for the 2 Hour Learning model (learning all academic content with apps and AI tutors that use personalized learning plans and spaced repetition to ensure mastery over all concepts, allowing students to fly through the material in just 2 hours per day). But Alpha now has been running Kindergarten for several years and I thought I would look in to see how it is going.
My reaction? Wow – Alpha has come so far in the last decade. It may sound like a proud alum bragging, but I can’t help it.
What is it like today? Alpha kindergarten and first grade are so phenomenal it's honestly hard to see this and not hope this is the future of education. These programs launch kids on their academic journey in a way that's nothing short of extraordinary. Every single kid achieves top 1% performance on nationwide exams. They're taught to have a growth mindset from day one and develop this infectious, optimistic, can-do attitude. And they accomplish all this through a carefully crafted set of workshops that completely transforms their parents' perception of what their kids are capable of achieving.
Here’s what Alpha teaches its kindergarten and first grade students:
Love of school (yes, really)
This is an important starting point, because I know what you're thinking. Alpha often talks to parents about this directly: “You're probably worried that because of these insane achievements and expectations, you'd be putting your little kid into some stress-induced pressure cooker environment. But that couldn't be further from the truth.
When you meet Charity, Mallory, and Malu ( three of our kindergarten guides) and witness how they wrap your kids in genuine love and care, you realize you're looking at the greatest kindergarten teachers in the world. These women have cracked the code on making rigorous learning feel like the most natural, joyful thing a child could be doing.
But here's what's going to happen to your daughter (and yes, this story gets told over and over). Sometime in the first 90 days, you're going to pick up your little bundle of love, and as you drive home, she'll start crying. You'll immediately spiral into panic mode, thinking to yourself: Is this environment too intense? Are they pushing her too hard? Did I make a terrible mistake?
But between those sobs, your 6-year-old will whisper: "Mommy, why can't we go to school on Saturday?" And that's the moment you'll know Alpha is exactly the right place for your kid.”
Our academic performance
The academic data from Alpha kindergarten and first grade truly speaks for itself. This is what the graph and summary from the nationwide NWEA MAP test results report looks like:
Looking at this MAPs test data, these results are absolutely extraordinary. Let me break down what you're seeing here:
That scatter plot shows four zones based on achievement vs. growth:
Bottom left (pink): Low achievement, low growth - struggling students
Top left (tan): Low achievement, high growth - catch-up mode
Bottom right (yellow): High achievement, low growth - coasting gifted kids
Top right (green): High achievement, high growth - the holy grail
Every single Alpha student (those purple squares and crosses) is clustered in that top-right green zone. This literally never happens. Most schools have students scattered across all four quadrants because that's... normal. Alpha has achieved something that defies educational statistics.
100% Met or Exceeded Projected Scores: In both math and reading, every single student hit or surpassed their individual growth targets. This is statistically impossible at scale. Even the best schools typically see 80-90% of students meeting projections.
222% and 195% of Projected Growth: Alpha students didn't just meet their growth targets, they obliterated them. They learned more than twice as fast as the sophisticated algorithms predicted they would. This suggests the learning environment is so optimized that it's accelerating development beyond what standardized models consider possible.
99th and 97th Percentile Growth: The median student at Alpha is growing faster than 97-99% of all students nationwide. This means even Alpha's "average" performers are growing at rates that would make them standouts at any other school.
And remember: they are doing all of this in just two hours every day.
I took this data and uploaded them to Claude 4-Opus deep research, submitting this prompt: "Provide deep academic insights. Compare these students to the students at the best schools in the USA." Here’s a link