Pennsylvania Department of Education issued a scathing rejection of Unbound Academy, an AI-powered cyber charter school. However, the state’s charter school laws will allow the school to reapply in the future.
Education advocates are cheering the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s decision to deny Unbound Academy’s application to operate a teacherless, artificial intelligence-powered cyber charter school.
“Pennsylvania’s nearly three-decade-old charter school law never envisioned a cyber school where human teachers were replaced with an AI program,” Aaron Chapin, President of the Pennsylvania State Education Association, said in a statement.
“There is no way that two hours of AI-guided learning in core subjects could replace direct instruction from a certified teacher or meet state academic standards.”
In their application, Unbound Academy proposed using an AI-powered program contracted by 2 Hour Learning to teach students with two hours of instruction on core subjects such as reading and math.
Unbound Academy and 2 Hour Learning were both founded by Andrew Price, and the online charter school planned on paying 2 Hour Learning $2.75 million in its first year.
Even though Unbound Academy failed to meet all the requirements on their application, they will have the opportunity to amend it in the future and reapply thanks to the state’s lax charter school laws.
Susan Spicka, Executive Director for Education Voters of Pennsylvania, explained in an interview how the AI-powered school could potentially gain a foothold in Pennsylvania years down the road.
“The ultimate problem is an application comes in, PDE reviews it, and then they give the application back. If they deny it, the cyber charter can reapply, and the way that you do a denial is you have to explain what was wrong with the application,” Susan Spicka explained in a recent interview.
“If PDE denies it again, then the cyber charter school can take it to the Charter Appeals Board, and so then they’ve got a third bite at the apple to try to get their charter approved. It’s a system that is just rigged in their favor.”
