{"id":1990509,"date":"2023-08-04T03:08:01","date_gmt":"2023-08-04T07:08:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/lebron-james-school-flop-proves-money-cant-buy-student-success\/"},"modified":"2023-08-04T03:12:13","modified_gmt":"2023-08-04T07:12:13","slug":"lebron-james-school-flop-proves-money-cant-buy-student-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/lebron-james-school-flop-proves-money-cant-buy-student-success\/","title":{"rendered":"LeBron James&#8217; school failure shows money can&#8217;t ensure student success."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Flebron-james-school-flop-proves-money-cant-buy-student-success%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1990509&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div class=\"article-content\">\n<p>After five years of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/I_Promise_School\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">fanfare and media coverage<\/a>, LeBron James\u2019 I Promise\u200b School in Akron, Ohio, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ideastream.org\/education\/2023-07-27\/lebron-james-i-promise-school-faces-tough-questions-about-student-performance\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">has\u2064 failed miserably.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>None of the eighth-grade students passed the state\u2019s math test, and only a \u200dfew of \u2062them tested proficient in\u00a0English. The school is also having \u200b <a href=\"https:\/\/www.beaconjournal.com\/story\/news\/2021\/11\/03\/akron-public-schools-installs-interim-leader-promise-school-brandi-davis-robinson-mcebright\/6266225001\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">turnover issues with\u200c campus leadership<\/a>, giving\u200c supporters little reason for optimism. <\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2-long d-flex justify-content-center\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center; \" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-1031290333\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-1379703300879-0\" class=\"mb-30\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-5ee43b7716eada58af4759a7d2a2082a fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-5ee43b7716eada58af4759a7d2a2082a\"><\/div>\n<p>As one \u2062would expect, conservatives \u201cpounced\u201d on \u200cthis news, and \u200cfor good reason: Few\u200d people have been as insufferable as LeBron James. The basketball superstar has been a \u2062vocal supporter of leftist causes such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/basketball\/53580644\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Black Lives Matter<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/sports\/2020\/07\/31\/lebron-james-salutes-colin-kaepernick-inspiring-nbas-national-anthem-demonstration\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">activist grifters like Colin Kaepernick<\/a>.\u200b Despite dominating the NBA and earning\u2062 millions of dollars straight out of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/scotus-expected-to-follow-up-race-based-admissions-decision-with-new-case-on-huge-issue-at-high-schools\/\" title=\"SCOTUS to tackle major high school issue after race-based admissions ruling.\">high\u200b school<\/a>, James <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/hes-promoting-racism-jason-whitlock-says-lebron-james-is-a-bigot\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">claimed to be the victim of racism<\/a>. And like virtually every other NBA player, he <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2021\/11\/29\/lebron-james-is-the-king-of-hypocrisy-when-it-comes-to-china\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">hypocritically refuses to criticize China<\/a> for its many <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/just-like-the-good-old-days-joe-biden-invades-syria-with-convoy-of-us-troops-and-choppers-on-first-full-day-as-president\/\" title=\"Just Like the Good Old Days: Joe Biden Invades Syria with Convoy of US Troops and Choppers on First Full Day as President\">human rights abuses<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>Naturally, the school received many fawning profiles, like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.edweek.org\/leadership\/opinion-lebron-james-opens-a-school-and-speaks-democracy-to-power\/2018\/08\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">this one<\/a> in Education Weekly,\u2064 insisting that James \u201cis one of the\u2064 most influential people in the United States, if not the world, \u2062and\u200d now\u2063 he is getting\u200d directly and personally involved in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/lebron-james-school-flop-proves-money-cant-buy-student-success\/\" title=\"LeBron James' school failure shows money can't ensure student success.\">education reform en route<\/a> to making a major statement\u2062 about American democracy.\u201d The I Promise School would finally give at-risk students and their families the \u200cnecessary\u200d resources to overcome their learning deficits. \u2064Yet for all\u200b these noble intentions, it was \u2062also\u200c clear that \u200cthis was a vanity project for\u200b James, who only \u201cvisited [the school] twice since the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/back-to-school-if-you-cant-change-your-school-do-these-5-things-instead\/\" title=\"Back To School: If You Can\u2019t Change Your School, Do These 5 Things Instead\">school year started<\/a>,\u201d though he makes sure he \u201cis everywhere \u2014 \u200don murals, on wallpaper, on video messages.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>As tempting \u200das it may be to deride a self-important narcissist like James, it\u2019s not exactly helpful or fair. James might suffer a \u200dbruised \u200cego, but he will obviously \u2062be fine. Meanwhile, the students of I Promise will graduate\u200b without being able to read, write, or do basic math. For the sake of these\u200b students, and the\u2064 millions of at-risk students like\u2064 them, it\u2019s worthwhile to consider why the school failed and what\u200d would have worked instead.  <\/p>\n<p>From the\u2063 outset, we should recognize just how challenging it is to help failing students. In my experience teaching high school English, education works a bit \u2063like the economy: The smart get much smarter, the average progress steadily, and the weaker students either\u200b stay the same or become even worse. Consequently, there are different tracks and\u200b approaches for each of these groups. Smart kids are put in\u200d an advanced \u2064track\u2062 and are \u2062usually given more latitude in behavioral and academic expectations, and kids in \u2062the middle are put on a \u2062regular track and usually held to a relatively low standard. <\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-355fc93c9c6d5d78e26bcc05d1038430 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-6\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-355fc93c9c6d5d78e26bcc05d1038430\"><\/div>\n<p>The below-average kids are usually placed in the \u2062regular track despite being significantly behind their peers.\u200b These students would <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theamericanconservative.com\/equity-punishes-our-best-students\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">benefit \u2063from a remedial track<\/a> \u200b that meets their\u2062 needs, but the advocates of equity <a href=\"https:\/\/www.brookings.edu\/articles\/does-detracking-promote-educational-equity\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">criticize \u2063this<\/a> as\u200b a form of discrimination that denies\u200d students an\u200c equal opportunity for academic success. So, they tend to get into trouble and\u200b fail their classes\u200b more\u2064 frequently because the instruction \u2062goes over their heads. Over the years, this problem compounds. By the time \u2062these <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/nearly-half-of-nycs-public-school-grads-require-remedial-courses-in-college\/\" title=\"Nearly Half of NYC's Public School Grads Require Remedial Courses in College\">students reach high school<\/a>, they\u200d are multiple \u200cyears behind their peers. <\/p>\n<p>Evidently, James\u200b and \u2063the people running I\u2064 Promise thought <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/04\/12\/education\/lebron-james-school-ohio.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">more money, encouragement, and media attention could fix the problem<\/a>. They assumed the leftist\u200c premise that low-performing kids are the victims of systemic injustices and could easily succeed if those obstacles were removed. James donated more than a million dollars each year \u2062to the \u2062school, which is somehow still part of the Akron public school district, so that it could hire more staff, \u2064offer more \u2064training, and\u2062 even provide welfare services to poor parents. In theory, this would give students everything they needed. <\/p>\n<p>In practice,\u200b however, this hardly moved the needle. \u2062While \u2064circumstances affect a student\u2019s success, their habits, values, and motivation play a much larger\u2064 role. One \u2064would think a sports phenom like James would know \u200dthis \u200cbetter than anyone. A boy could have all the support in the world, but if he thinks learning is useless, studying is for chumps, or his future as a TikTok influencer is guaranteed, he\u200b will inevitably flounder.  <\/p>\n<p>I Promise, and the\u2063 <a href=\"https:\/\/charterschoolcapital.com\/blog\/charter-schools-and-at-risk-students-the-challenges-and-rewards\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">slew of charter schools just like it<\/a>, \u200ddemonstrate that there is no shortcut to fixing failure. Great students are the result of many years of sustained effort from\u200c excellent teachers, not a\u2062 few positive affirmations and pats on the back from a well-meaning mentor.  <\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-e7d42f5cf7213c701ea6667353098ff2 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-10\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-e7d42f5cf7213c701ea6667353098ff2\"><\/div>\n<p>One of the best examples of this is Jaime Escalante,\u00a0who was the subject of \u201cStand and\u2063 Deliver,\u201d the 1988 film. While the movie suggested \u2063he transformed thugs into math scholars in a couple of years, \u2063it <a href=\"https:\/\/reason.com\/2002\/07\/01\/stand-and-deliver-revisited-2\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">actually took him several years, a whole series of specially designed \u200bcourses, and a team of handpicked teachers to make this happen<\/a>. Far more than standing and delivering in\u200d his classroom,\u2064 he needed to put together a pipeline of bootcamp-style classes than\u200b ran through summers to prepare\u200b underclassmen to take the AP exam their senior year. <\/p>\n<p>Would-be humanitarians like\u200b James need to realize that nothing short of\u00a0Herculean effort is necessary to achieve lasting reform. This may be discouraging, particularly if one hopes \u2062for a quick fix\u200d and immediate payoff, but it also suggests improvement is at least possible if teachers and students\u00a0are willing to make the commitment. <\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-b69d6acec1cbf917bab0ae58d347464b fdrlst__b89e9-after-post-content\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-b69d6acec1cbf917bab0ae58d347464b\"><\/div>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\">    \t\t\t\t\t   \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After five years, LeBron James&#8217; I Promise School in Akron, Ohio, disappoints. No eighth-grade students passed the state&#8217;s math test, and only a few showed proficiency in English. The school faces leadership turnover, leaving supporters with little hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":551,"featured_media":1990510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1990509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1990509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/551"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1990509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1990509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1990510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1990509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1990509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1990509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}