HoldsUp

Joe Liemandt

Alpha School

Joe Liemandt is a technology entrepreneur and the principal of Alpha School, a K-12 educational institution. His work focuses on utilizing artificial intelligence and individualized learning models to accelerate academic mastery and develop practical life skills in students.

22 claims checked on air: 4 contradicted 1 overstated 11 supported 6 unverified 5 flagged

What they said on air - flagged

2:00:01overstatedhighHow to Accelerate Learning & Improve Education | Joe Liemand

The average American public school spends $20,000 per student per year.

"The average public school spends $20,000 per kid per year." (said at 2:00:01)

The claim overstates national average per-pupil spending in U.S. public elementary and secondary schools. While expenditures have grown substantially in real terms over recent decades and some high-spending states or urban districts exceed $20,000 per pupil, national benchmarks from public education finance datasets show that average current expenditures per student in the United States typically range between $13,000 and $16,000 per year (and total expenditures including capital outlays around $16,000 to $18,000), rather than a $20,000 national average.

2:00:15contradictedhighHow to Accelerate Learning & Improve Education | Joe Liemand

By law, American public schools are prohibited from giving cash directly to students as incentives.

"By law, actually, public schools can't give out cash to kids." (said at 2:00:15)

The claim that public schools in the United States are prohibited by law from distributing cash directly to students as incentives is contradicted by multiple large-scale public school initiatives and randomized controlled trials evaluating direct financial payments to students. For example, randomized field experiments conducted across hundreds of urban public schools in major American school districts—including New York City, Chicago, Dallas, Washington D.C., and Houston—directly paid students cash for various academic inputs and outputs, such as reading books, attendance, behavior, homework completion, classroom grades, and interim assessment scores (Fryer, 2011; Fryer, 2012). These programs were administered directly through public school systems, demonstrating that there is no general legal prohibition precluding public schools from providing monetary rewards to students.

2:31:40contradictedhighHow to Accelerate Learning & Improve Education | Joe Liemand

The Prussian education system was originally established to industrialize schooling and create compliant workers for factories.

"The Prussians started, they're like, "We need people who follow rules, who do what we're told, and we put enough knowledge in that they can do those jobs." And it was an industrialization of education to create industrial workers." (said at 2:31:40)

Historical research contradicts the claim that the Prussian education system was created to train compliant industrial factory workers. Compulsory primary schooling in Prussia was established during the 18th century (notably Frederick the Great's Generallandschulreglement in 1763) and reformed in the early 19th century—well before industrialization began in Prussia, which was then an agrarian state. Historical and political science scholarship demonstrates that Prussian mass education was introduced for nation-building, military discipline, social cohesion, religious literacy, and loyalty to the monarch, rather than to supply labor for an industrial factory system that did not yet exist.

5:52:08contradictedhighHow to Accelerate Learning & Improve Education | Joe Liemand

Family income is the single biggest predictor of academic test score performance in the United States education system.

"And so, the American educational system today, because of how it's built and how it's structured, the single biggest indicator of your performance is your family income. You can predict somebody's test scores basically. Not IQ. IQ is a secondary effect within that." (said at 5:52:08)

Extensive empirical research in psychology and educational measurement demonstrates that general cognitive ability (IQ / general intelligence) is the single strongest predictor of academic achievement and standardized test score performance, typically correlating between r = 0.50 and r = 0.70 with educational outcomes. While family income and socioeconomic status (SES) are significant predictors of academic achievement (typically showing correlations between r = 0.25 and r = 0.35), large-scale cohort studies in the US and UK demonstrate that general cognitive ability accounts for far more variance in individual test scores than parental SES or family income, directly contradicting the claim that family income is the primary predictor and that IQ is merely secondary.

6:02:25contradictedhighHow to Accelerate Learning & Improve Education | Joe Liemand

The primary factor that helps overcome student learning blocks and builds confidence is observing a peer or classmate perform the task.

"The number one thing that convinces kids they can do something is watching their classmate do it." (said at 6:02:25)

The speaker claims that observing a classmate perform a task ("vicarious experience" or peer modeling) is the single most important factor ("the number one thing") that builds self-efficacy and convinces students they can do something. In Albert Bandura's foundational self-efficacy theory and subsequent educational research on the sources of self-efficacy, personal performance accomplishments (mastery experiences) consistently rank as the primary and most powerful source of self-efficacy beliefs, whereas vicarious experience (observing peers) is identified as a secondary source. Empirical evaluations of the sources of self-efficacy confirm that mastery experience accounts for the primary contribution to self-efficacy, while vicarious experience provides weaker influence.

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