The Miami Herald reported on the burgeoning demand for boutique schools by billionaires moving to Florida. Why Florida? Because the state has no state income tax.
Where should a billionaire send his or her children to school? Surely not the public schools, where they would rub shoulders with kids who are from all kinds of backgrounds.
The arrival of wealth has encouraged the opening of new schools for the super-rich.
Will the super-rich be satisfied with an AI-driven school at a time when educators are becoming skeptical of the educational value of AI?
Will elite families line up to enroll their privileged children in a charter chain designed originally for impoverished children in Harlem? Will their progeny flourish in a “no excuses” setting where test scores are king?
The story says:
A controversial billionaire-backed artificial intelligence school is planting a new flag in Miami Beach.
Alpha School, which has no traditional teachers, only two hours of core learning per school day and $65,000 annual tuition, just paid $19 million for the former one-acre home of the Papillon Montessori campus at 1021 Biarritz Drive in Normandy Isle, according to Miami-Dade property records and the city of Miami Beach. Without teachers, students take part in workshops led by adults called “guides.”
The transaction closed in June. By August, Alpha Miami Beach, a K-8 school with one of the highest tuitions in Miami-Dade, is scheduled to open for the 2026-27 school year. For comparison, annual tuition at Ransom Everglades School is about $54,300, while Gulliver Prep charges about $56,000.
The three-building campus, which can accommodate as many as 250 students, has operated as a Montessori school since 1999. Property records indicate the school sold the campus after facing a foreclosure lawsuit. The complex comes with a swimming pool, hydroponic garden, koi pond and outdoor classrooms.
Alpha School Miami, which already operates a campus across from Tropical Park in west Miami-Dade, now brings its educational model to one of South Florida’s wealthiest communities.
“We are very excited and happy to support this new school,” Miami Beach Planning Director Deborah Tackett told an Alpha representative during a city meeting where the school pledged it would comply with all existing restrictions governing the property. For Miami Beach, the acquisition represents more than a real estate transaction. It also reflects a broader trend in which wealthy newcomers are fueling demand for elite schools, concierge healthcare, private clubs and other services catering to high-income families.
The school did not respond to requests for comment.
The driving force behind Alpha is billionaire software entrepreneur and principal investor Joe Liemandt of Austin, Texas, who says the company’s mission is nothing less than reinventing education through artificial intelligence. Liemandt, founder of Trilogy Software and ESW Capital, is worth $6 billion, according to Forbes.
Influx of wealth drives private school demand
The purchase of the old Montessori campus is another sign that the influx of affluent families into South Florida is reshaping not only the luxury real estate market but also the institutions that serve it.
Many of the billionaires relocating themselves or their company headquarters to the region have chosen Miami Beach as home. Finding upscale private schooling for their children has become an issue.
Ken Griffin, the billionaire founder and CEO of the hedge fund Citadel, has said South Florida needs more top-tier schools to continue attracting wealthy families to the area. He has been a leading voice in encouraging other billionaires and business leaders to move to South Florida.
Griffin, who moved from Chicago to Miami along with Citadel’s global headquarters in 2022, has donated $50 million to expand the New York-based Success Academy charter school network into South Florida.
Andy Ansin, a real estate developer and the owner of WSVN/Channel 7, is another wealthy South Floridian looking to expand private schooling in Miami-Dade.
Ansin told the Miami Herald he is in the process of purchasing land in the northeastern part of the county. He plans to work with a school operator to turn the parcel into the site of a new private school on par with Ransom Everglades and Gulliver Prep.
“We really need a top private school in the northeastern part of the county,” Ansin said. “There’s tremendous demand.”
An alum of Ransom Everglades, Ansin served on the school’s board for 15 years. During that time, Ansin said families from New York would tell him, “‘Well, we’re only going to move to Miami if our kids can get into Ransom.’” He realized Miami-Dade needed more private schools, he said.
Ansin said he cannot disclose the exact location of the site, and he does not yet know which school will operate on the site. He said he wants to partner with a well-regarded school operator, and he would be interested in a school that focuses on “modern-day learning practices,” like teaching with AI.
To the north, real estate billionaire and Miami Dolphins owner Stephen M. Ross is getting involved in private education in Palm Beach County.
Related Ross, a West Palm Beach-based real estate firm founded by Ross, recently announced it is backing a West Palm Beach campus of the prestigious Pine Crest School. The private school already has campuses in Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton.
Alpha’s AI curriculum raises eyebrows
Alpha’s arrival in Miami Beach comes as the controversial school rapidly expands nationwide. The hallmark of Alpha’s curriculum is its use of artificial intelligence to help students master the required academic curriculum in about two hours a day, co-founder MacKenzie Price said in a school podcast on YouTube.
Price is an Austin, Texas, mother who grew disenchanted with public schools and joined forces with Liemandt to open Alpha School.
Liemandt says Alpha is unique. It combines AI with learning science to teach students about 10 times faster than traditional instruction. Under the model, students spend roughly two hours each day working with an AI tutor on core academics before shifting not to the 3Rs, but the 4Cs — critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity. The school does not require an admissions test.
Students take part in workshops on leadership, entrepreneurship, financial literacy, public speaking and teamwork led by their “guides.”
Ultimately, Liemandt says he hopes to create an AI-powered learning platform that can be delivered on a tablet costing less than $1,000 and reach 1 billion children worldwide. He says he has committed $1 billion to the effort.
Education experts say AI has the potential to personalize instruction. Critics, however, argue that students still benefit from traditional classroom interaction, teacher-led instruction and social learning.
Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/miami-beach/article316497031.html#storylink=cpy
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The push for low to no property taxes comes at a time when all these billionaires are moving to Miami. The governor’s plan is another wealth transfer scheme that will cost working families more in regressive taxes and fees, and the billionaires will not have to pay as much for their gigantic estates. If passed, it will cause widespread chaos in communities as local governments scramble to provide services. This plan also would consolidate more power in Tallahassee.
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I was curious as to what families and students had to say about these schools and this is what I found.
WIRED recently published an in-depth investigation of Alpha School that provides a useful counterpoint to the glowing media coverage the school has received.
Reporter Todd Feathers interviewed parents, students, former employees, and school leaders over several months. Rather than concluding that the model works or fails, the reporting found that families had very different experiences.
Among the concerns raised were:
At the same time, WIRED also reported that other families remained enthusiastic about the school and believed their children were thriving. The investigation did not claim that every student had a negative experience, but it did raise questions about whether a model built around AI instruction and limited direct teaching works equally well for all children.
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In order to nourish and develop their minds, students need so much more than rote learning delivered by a bot. They also need to learn how to develop socially and emotionally, neither of which they will learn from a bot.
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Human beings matter
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