Read this Daily Beast story about a new online school that Elon Musk helped with

In 2015, Tesla and CEO of SpaceX, Elon Musk, said he had started a school to teach his five children, eventually expanding it into a non-profit school for some of the children of SpaceX employees. He said at the time that his children’s school was not “doing things I thought should be done,” so he hired his children’s teacher to help found the Ad Astra School. It abolished formal rank structures and focused on problem-solving, Musk’s direction, and paid all costs.

Now he has made an initial donation to a new for-profit online school in Los Angeles, according to one research by The Daily Beast. According to business documents discovered by The Daily Beast, the Astra Nova School, which plans to open in September, was founded by Musk employee Jared Birchall.

Astra Nova director Joshua Dahn told it The Daily Beast that Musk is not involved in the management of the new company, but has confirmed his original role. “Elon helped with a first donation and some basic administrative help to get Astra Nova going,” he wrote. “But Elon has no financial interest in the school and no children in the school.”

Distance learning has become a new reality for many parents during the coronavirus pandemic. Astra Nova invites “academically serious, creative and friendly students between 8 and 14 years old” to apply watch this video and respond to video before July 10. But according to The Daily Beast, tuition for the school costs $ 7,500 per week for a day of online classes, making it likely out of reach for all but the wealthiest families. And advocates of education are not in love with the idea, TDB found it. Dean of the University of Kentucky College of Education Julian Vasquez Heilig said he wished Musk had tried to partner with existing online education programs.

“I don’t regret Elon Musk doing this kind of work,” added Vasquez Heilig. “I wish he had instead chosen to partner with Oakland or Alum Rock, a school district that serves low-income students in Silicon Valley. There are many concerns about equality in the field of STEM and he [had] a real opportunity to make what he did a public good, rather than a private good accessible only to certain people. ”

Musk and his staff have not commented on his involvement with the school. Go check out The Daily Beast’s full report about Astra Nova.