
LeBron James school that was considered an experiment is showing promise - throwaway5752
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/12/education/lebron-james-school-ohio.html
======
supernintendo
This story resonates with me deeply. I grew up in a lower income, single
parent household to a family environment plagued with drug addiction and
feelings of economic hopelessness. I was on track to drop out by my senior
year of high school. My father (who was always in and out of prison) committed
suicide my freshman year of high school. I was distraught but blessed. My
English teacher at the time noticed what I was going through and got me
involved in a program for at-risk kids called AVID [1]. It is because of this
organization that I was able to not only graduate from high school but also
university and go on to have a successful career in software development.

Our society pays a lot of lip service to youth being the future but we don't
actually do much to help them succeed. The person you might call a loser or
criminal was once a child who had the opportunity to become a shining example
of what our society can produce. These children are being lost at some point
along the way. Once they become adults we shame them for their life decisions
but what are we actually doing to solve the problem?

When you say, "hey, 90% of these students are outpacing peers in their
district based on academic indicators", I say maybe LeBron is onto something.
Let's adopt this approach, scale it and study the results.

[1] [https://www.avid.org/](https://www.avid.org/)

~~~
thatoneuser
I grew up similarly. I've seen program after program come into my home town
just for the administrators to pack up and leave town 1-2 years in, blaming
everyone but themselves. It's very refreshing to see someone who "wants to
make the world better" actually doing it rather than paying lip service with
the real goal of boosting their ego.

Hope this is legit. Tip my hat to LeBron for being a real hero to the
underserved.

~~~
wallace_f
Thanks for sharing your stories.

It would be nice if such administrators and bureaucrats somehow had some skin
in the game. Unfortunately, like you say "paying lip service" looks like it
often wins out in America's public schools, and our children and future is
what suffers.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
The people promoting these schools are only out to line their pockets with
sweet voucher money by selling ineffective books and teaching materials. The
schools are set up to fail from the start because they're just a means to
extract profits.

~~~
dwater
It is a lot more complicated than that. There are some people in the system
trying to extract money, but they are mostly associated with Pearson and the
like. Most of the administrators, coaches, and other non-teacher employees
started off in the education field wanting to improve the lives of children,
but found themselves trapped in a system that is built of perverse incentives
from top to bottom.

It is impossible to change the trajectory of a community in one or two years,
but the political powers demand measurable results before the next election.
The administrators are trapped: they have risen high enough through the system
that they are making more money than they ever could as a teacher, and their
personal spending expanded enough so they can't go back without significant
personal sacrifice (on top of the sacrifices they already made when choosing
to work in education). They realize that goosing test scores isn't good for
the students, but they rationalize it by telling themselves that if they can
manipulate the test scores enough to get central administration off their
back, then they can implement the real changes they want. But nothing short of
a meteoric improvement will placate the people high enough in the system to be
exposed politically, and everyone in middle management is trapped in a cycle
of telling themselves, "We just need to do this distasteful stuff this year,
so we can really fix things next year."

I was a high school teacher for 9 years, and literally every single year I had
an administrator tell me about the plans they had for how they would fix
things in the next school year once the test scores improved.

------
sudhirj
They're pretty public about their "secret sauce", which is to offer a pretty
neat ladder up Maslow's pyramid, especially for the parents.

Any family worried about food / clothes can come into the pantry and take
whatever they need. Physiological needs, check. Barbershop available. That's
really interesting.

Safety needs: see above, with heavy emphasis on dealing with conflict
situations. Celebrate coming to school, make sure it's always a safe place,
extra hours and days to keep them off the streets.

Belonging and love: everyone in the school are the "chosen ones", they have a
tribe, the teachers are on their side, the parents are involved and
accountable.

If you handle the first three levels for a person, hitting self esteem,
accomplishment (at a personal level, need not be state's best or world's best)
can come much easier, even with average quality of teaching. They're also
making the parents baseline role models (they clean, clothed, putting food on
the table and looking into their own self improvement) and plastering the
environment with a topline role model LeBron James (if he can do it you could
at least try as hard as he did).

~~~
azernik
The inclusion of a barbershop is very much an African-American cultural thing
- these are traditional male social gathering places in that society. So this
is probably not just providing a haircut, but also some things a bit higher up
the Maslow hierarchy like that belonging you mentioned.

~~~
codebolt
As a white male, the barber shop is one thing I always envied African-
Americans. Seems nice to have a place where you can always drop by for some
loose banter with the local guys.

~~~
ikeyany
What a strange stereotype...is this something people get from TV? How many
black people do you know that use their barbershop as a place other than to
get a haircut?

Black people go to their friend's house or a bar, just like white people do.

~~~
c0vfefe
I would guess that's fiction imitating reality. I'll only generalize about my
own race's behavior here, by saying that most people reading this are probably
white and therefore less likely to have useful input into your question.

~~~
ikeyany
On what basis do you say it's imitating reality?

~~~
c0vfefe
I found some more information on this:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wCbRfoWgmQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wCbRfoWgmQ)

[https://www.ted.com/talks/joseph_ravenell_how_barbershops_ca...](https://www.ted.com/talks/joseph_ravenell_how_barbershops_can_keep_men_healthy)

[https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/the-empowering-
evo...](https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/the-empowering-evolution-of-
black-barbershops/)

------
nopinsight
Two major and quite distinctive improvements of the school I noticed from the
article:

* Improving parental involvement and the parents’ attention to their own education

* Utilizing the hidden power of role models: LeBron James and each kid’s parents

Students spend significantly more time at home than at school. Parents
interact with each kid one-on-one or in a small group. Thus, they can have
much more influence than teachers on the kid’s attitude, motivation, and
habits regarding education.

If we look at a broader picture, most countries that do well in PISA, an
international assessment of academic skills for school students, strongly
value education at every level of society starting from parents and family.
This includes Vietnam, a relatively poor country which, at rank 22, does
better than quite a few Western European ones.

The US, at rank 31, should study this school and expand on good lessons
learned from the experiment.

[1] PISA results map [http://factsmaps.com/pisa-worldwide-ranking-average-
score-of...](http://factsmaps.com/pisa-worldwide-ranking-average-score-of-
math-science-reading/)

~~~
nopinsight
Vietnam’s GDP PPP per capita in 2017 is about $6500; the US’ is about $60000.

This implies that the US as a nation should have resources to support better
education if they are deployed well, despite some discount from Baumol’s cost
disease.

------
externalreality
This a good thing! I am 100% in support of James' endeavor here. However,
students doing better when put in a better environment should not be
surprising. I was a lower income student who was shipped across town to a
majority white school as a anti-segregation program that was brokered with a
federal oversight committee. The African Americans in that school were treated
quite bad. My first day at school I was labeled "<my first name> Brown" by the
kindergarten because there was a student who already had my first name in the
class. My last name isn't "Brown" that's my skin color. That was my first
minute in school and I'm only 36 years old not 66 years old.

~~~
istjohn
If I can ask, how do you feel about the program that bussed you across town,
overall? Do you feel you benefited on net despite the exposure to the racism,
or would you prefer to have stayed in your neighborhood school if you could do
it all again?

~~~
externalreality
istjohn, I deeply appreciate your question. I've been sitting here for over an
hour trying to answer so I'll just answer simply. Yes, I would rather have
gone to a school in my neighborhood. I would have rather been around other
African American and LatinX students than to have learned what it is to be
neglected and to feel inferior @ 4.5 years old. No question.

Please don't use my response as an argument in support of segregation. That
would be purely evil and disgusting.

~~~
istjohn
Thank you for sharing your experience. I'm sorry you had to go through that.

I believe the racial segregation in our country is an enormous injustice that
gets short shrift in public conversation. It's so pervasive in our society
that we don't even see it anymore. It's role in education is particularly
pernicious. I live in Columbus, Ohio, which like many northern cities has an
underfunded, poorly performing, mostly black and brown school district in its
core flanked all around by well-funded, high-performing, mostly white school
districts. My son's elementary school last year had 82% students of color and
two miles away in another school district was a public elementary with 9%
students of color.

I did some research to understand how things came to be like this in my city,
and of course, it’s the typical story of white flight after Brown v. Board of
Education. But what surprised me, a white person, was the historical and
continuing ambivalence in the local black community with bussing as a solution
to racial inequality in education. And I’ve seen that ambivalence expressed
elsewhere, too. I was told that prior to Brown v. Board there were excellent
all-black public schools. Then Brown v. Board triggered white flight, which
drained all the resources from the city core, and eventually even middle class
black families who could afford to, got out. The answer is not bussing, not
integration, I was told by one thought-leader in the local black community,
but quality, well-funded community schools.

I struggle to accept that answer because I know the data shows that minority
students benefit hugely when their schools are not segregated. Yet I
understand why sending kids to schools that aren’t in their community and
where they may not be welcome is problematic. I wonder if the ideal solution
isn’t a bussing program that is just as likely to bus a white kid to a black
school as a black kid to a white school. But the program would need to be
robust enough to prevent or adapt to white flight. Or maybe we should focus
our energy on residential economic and racial segregation which, if solved,
would also solve the educational segregation issue. I don’t know.

In any case, I’d love to hear any thoughts you might have.

~~~
externalreality
I agree with you, but I don't have too much more to add. From birth non-blacks
(and blacks alike) are classically conditioned by numerous socio-environmental
stimuli to believe that blacks are inferior. I believe that all other issues
discussed in this thread are based that unfortunate foundation. And that
foundation is, of course, based on the tragic history of our country with
respect to race relations.

------
shhehebehdh
I didn’t see anything about this in the article, so I ask here in the hopes
that someone more knowledgeable can comment: how are they controlling for
selection bias? Is there any way to select into or out of this school, or is
it purely the standard districting system? Even if it’s the latter in many
other places it’s still possible to move into the area. Do we know to what
extent that has been happening?

Edit: Oops, I was tricked by an advert. The article continued to say that the
students were admitted by lottery. The only question I’m immediately left with
then is whether they had to enter the lottery, or whether it was automatic?
And was their admission contingent on their parents’ willingness to
participate in these extra classes?

[https://fredrikdeboer.com/2017/03/29/why-selection-bias-
is-t...](https://fredrikdeboer.com/2017/03/29/why-selection-bias-is-the-most-
powerful-force-in-education/)

~~~
icelancer
There is selection bias for sure; except it works in the opposite way
regarding successful outcomes. IPS takes low-performing individuals and puts
them in a lottery system.

This differs from a charter school or other alternative schools that skirt
responsibility of special needs kids... but it should bear mention that IPS is
not without controversy. The lottery system causes a lot of strife in
eligible-but-unpicked individuals and also costs the taxpayers a substantial
sum; LeBron does not cover 100% of the costs, or even a majority of them.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Promise_School](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Promise_School)

~~~
microcolonel
> _This differs from a charter school or other alternative schools that skirt
> responsibility of special needs kids_

This is illegal in a lot of places, and I doubt it is common.

~~~
monocasa
It was very common in my charter high school. For whatever reason they weren't
concerned with the drop out rate, so they openly encouraged special needs kids
to drop out.

They had previously encouraged them to go to the alternative school, but
budget cuts shut that school down.

~~~
microcolonel
> _For whatever reason they weren 't concerned with the drop out rate_

Maybe this is related to the incentive system (at that time) in your region.

------
ngngngng
I devote a lot of my time thinking about how to improve education. I love so
much of what this school is doing, much of it being things I hadn't
considered, since my education had far far different problems than these kids
have.

Out of everything in the article, what impressed me the most was the
roleplaying with the intervention counselor. What an incredible way to help
kids learn how to behave and assimilate into society. I think that role
playing everyday situations should be a part of every students education.

~~~
johnsimer
I also think a bit about improving education.

What are the best things from your thoughts/research someone or society as a
whole could do to improve education?

~~~
thirdsurf
Can we publish open source examples of school architectures?

What about some 'near term science fiction', publishing examples of people-
powered schooling that could emerge in places. I want to see how we can use
cheap computing resources, peripherals and models of human interaction to help
schools create themselves.

Nucleos is a company working on bringing education resources to developing
world areas: [https://nucleos.com/blog/2017/02/portablecloud-supports-e-
le...](https://nucleos.com/blog/2017/02/portablecloud-supports-e-learning-in-
zimbabwe)

I hope to do something with educational software abroad, including it with the
3D printing computer labs I hope to set up. They can make about $50-$100 of
surfboard fins a day, using about $10 of filament. I'm linking to my site
below, it works now but I've not done much to help with formatting issues. I'm
just getting the content out and cleaning it up along the way:
[https://stormfins.com](https://stormfins.com)

PS In case you're wondering, this post motivated me to set up a new account.
My last one was sacrosurf, and prior to that it was toddio. This moniker
matches the other .com I have, which I plan to use as a "School of Surfing"
concept: thirdsurf.com I want to get surf instruction to happen in an easier
and more empowering P2P manner, but I'm focusing on completing enough of the
stormfins website first. Any support or assistance it welcome. I've got a B.S.
in Computer Engineering from '97-'02 at UCSC, and a fun list of prior gigs and
projects including helping get
[https://www.beelinereader.com/](https://www.beelinereader.com/) started, and
getting T9Space.com's app setup generalized into a browser, helping 100,000s
of flip phone internet users have access to the internet like they had a
desktop computer to use.

------
SpaceManNabs
Of course it was going to be a success. Most other approaches that approached
intergenerational poverty via the three pronged approach of better child care,
housing, and economic opportunity has work to great success.

The school doesn't try to solve all 3 at once, but the approach to child care
makes the other much easier to manage for parents.

~~~
fillskills
Wonder if such a 3 pronged approach can be applied to integration of
immigrants.

~~~
azernik
Worked pretty well in early Israel. Generally it's an interesting study model,
in that it saw and continues to see absorption of (Jewish) immigrants as a
national mission, not just an unwelcome burden.

It includes what's essentially a full-time salary to study Hebrew for 6
months, subsidized housing for a year, subsidized daycare, job counseling, and
assorted miscellaneous benefits. Not always sufficiently funded, but the basic
model is endorsed.

------
mac01021
> Nataylia Henry, a fourth grader, missed more than 50 days of school last
> year because she said she would rather sleep than face bullies at school.
> This year, her overall attendance rate is 80 percent.

Really? You had to switch to percentages instead of saying she missed 36 days
a year instead of 50?

------
basetop
As a minority, I hope this isn't another "minority schools do well turned
scam". Seems like we have these "amazing successes" turned to "scams" every
couple of years.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/30/us/tm-landry-college-
prep...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/30/us/tm-landry-college-prep-black-
students.html)

If it is a success, why turn it into a national story? Doesn't that put more
unnecessary pressure on these schools and kids to "succeed"? Wouldn't that put
more pressure on these schools to cheat if expectations aren't met?

I don't understand why this is a national news story. Do the kids benefit from
the extra national pressure? No. Do the schools benefit? No. Am I wrong in
thinking only lebron and the nytimes benefits from this story? Why not let
these kids and schools succeed quietly? These underprivileged kids have enough
hurdles as is, do they really the added burden of national coverage?

~~~
thatoneuser
Because if this truly is a success then we want to spread the concept as far
as we can as fast as we can. It can receive national attention and not harm
those inside if done right.

~~~
basetop
Agreed. Lets wait to see whether it is truly a success before hyping it.
Especially since lebron's school opened in fall of 2018. I say it takes a
generation to see if an education system is a sucess, not half a school year.
Can we really say a school is a success after a few months?

Besides, I think celebrity and schools aren't what's truly important. Parental
employment/financial stability, parental involvement in kids' lives and
parental stability ( aka no divorces or single parent family ) are a better
solution to kids success in school than a basketball player ( who went
straight to the NBA from high school ) and his idea of an ideal school. But
maybe I'm just old fashioned in that way.

------
b_tterc_p
I like the concept. I’m not sure their stats check out. Maybe someone more
knowledgeable can chime in. The article suggests a lot of the kids here were
bottom percentile performers on standardized tests (literal 1th percentile).

I do wonder if the test is valid at scores that poor. Could it be that the
bottom percentile is just the kids who guessed randomly and had bad luck, as
opposed to, say, the ninth percentile who guessed randomly and had good luck?
How likely would it be for a bottom percent student to stay bottom percent
with no special schooling? I really just don’t have a good sense for what it
means to strive for 10th percentile performance on tests like these.

~~~
collective-intl
I think there is a major flaw which you are getting at.

If you take the students who performed at the 10th-25th percentile in any
school in one year, on average they would do better the next year because of
reversion to the mean.

The way to understand it is that the population they chose did so poorly on
their test last year, it is likely that they did worse than they usually do.
They are more likely to have had an off year.

For example, the NYT article mentions the girl who missed 50 days of school
the previous year. It's more likely she won't miss so many days this year.
That's reversion to the mean.

IMO, that throws all the results into question, as you would expect them to do
better already.

In general, there are no panaceas in education. Any school which is claiming
really great results pretty much never holds up. We've had decades of these
articles with experts trying to figure out how to achieve better educational
outcomes, and very few can be isolated. Even Bill Gates tried for a while.

Anyone who studies this stuff seriously will tell you educational outcomes are
mostly based on innate talent.

~~~
elgenie
> If you take the students who performed at the 10th-25th percentile in any
> school in one year, on average they would do better the next year because of
> reversion to the mean.

This is shoddy reasoning that assumes that each school year is an independent
trial. In reality, school years build on each other and usually success in the
next year requires familiarity with and competence in the previous year's
material, so a more reasonable assumption IMO would be that those kids' next
year would if fact be closer to a normal distribution with a mean _at_ the
17.5th percentile.

It's certainly arguable that some of the reason for the school's success is
that they're selecting students into classrooms in which they're _all_
10th-25th percentile which lets the teachers zero out the effect of them
having fallen behind without the stigma of being "the dumb class" if they were
tracked that way inside another school. But if that's the case, isn't that a
rather valuable effect?

~~~
collective-intl
That's a valid point that someone who fell behind their usual performance may
also do just as bad the next year since school material is cumulative. I
strongly suspect that this effect is smaller than the reversion to the mean,
but you are right we would need to look at data to know for sure.

------
tracker1
I'm just happy to see a positive article.. I see so much political or tech
news, I don't get much on the positive side, generally speaking.

~~~
singhrac
I read this regularly to get that :) [https://www.nytimes.com/spotlight/the-
week-in-good-news](https://www.nytimes.com/spotlight/the-week-in-good-news)

~~~
tracker1
Looks like it stalled back in January.. :-(

~~~
ceejayoz
That's like something out of The Onion.

"Newspaper's 'good news' section shuts down, cites lack of good news"

------
danso
Related HN thread from 8 months ago (602 upvotes/463 comments):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17661995](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17661995)

~~~
throwaway5752
Sure, but it's nice to see the premise borne out by the early data:

 _The students’ scores reflect their performance on the Measures of Academic
Progress assessment, a nationally recognized test administered by NWEA, an
evaluation association. In reading, where both classes had scored in the
lowest, or first, percentile, third graders moved to the ninth percentile, and
fourth graders to the 16th. In math, third graders jumped from the lowest
percentile to the 18th, while fourth graders moved from the second percentile
to the 30th.

The 90 percent of I Promise students who met their goals exceeded the 70
percent of students districtwide, and scored in the 99th growth percentile of
the evaluation association’s school norms, which the district said showed that
students’ test scores increased at a higher rate than 99 out of 100 schools
nationally._

------
mindfulplay
It's a shame that a private citizen has do this. Reflects poorly on our
country that the economically disadvantaged really do not have a choice or a
voice.

And these are not people who choose to be poor or incapable. They really don't
have any other option.

~~~
whatshisface
You could also say that it reflects well on our country that a private citizen
was able to realize that something needed to be done differently, and then
make the change themselves instead of hassling through a decades-long "change
the bureaucracy" adventure while competing with seven other equally motivated
individuals who also want to change the education system, but in completely
different ways...

~~~
cabaalis
You have touched on the fundamental divide in American society. Do it yourself
because you want it done and since you have the resources or the drive, versus
wait for someone else to do it or force everyone else to since you lack the
resources or the drive.

Even politicians who spend so much time and effort highlighting inequalities
in society are able to do so because they had to drive to make themselves to
do it. If their manner of achieving things is for good or ill is up for
debate, but there is no arguing that they are where they are because they
chose to go for it.

A journey of a thousand miles starts with one step...

~~~
dunstad
Hard to walk when you're born in concrete shoes, though.

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
This illustrates that parents are the key component in childhood education. A
worse than average teacher who teaches kids with involved parents will
outperform the best teacher with uninvolved parents.

In addition, LeBron James has a huge amount of credibility built up with the
students. I would guess that many of the students feel some sort of connection
to him, and do not want to disappoint him.

~~~
matt4077
I doubt there was ever much debate that parents are the single most important
factor for children.

It’s just that, from a policy perspective, it is extremely hard to actually
have any impact on that behavior. It’s basically social work, a concept for
which there is essentially no money at scale in the US.

~~~
sonnyblarney
More wealth/economic security, safe environment, conscientious and attentive
parents, good community of role models, peer kids with good parents as well =
decent students.

In other words - children are reared by their parents, as they always have (!)
and their academic achievement is mostly a function of their upbringing. Sure,
some kids hate school or are bad at at even with good parents. Some schools
are better than others ...

... but if you have 'decent community, decent parents, decent regular public
school' then 'the kids will be ok'.

The discussion in some ways should be more about good jobs, stabilizing
dangerous neighbourhoods, flushing out gangs, giving troubled kids a place to
hang out + role models, making the learning environment safe where kids can
focus on learning.

I just don't believe that the solution to education has much to do with
'teacher quality' or 'competitive teaching' or some kind of new-fangled
special kind of education, or even exceptional schools.

More controversially I would say that schools aren't even mostly about
learning, other than some very basic mathematical, historical and geographic
literacy, schools are mostly about socialization, language and communication.
Effectively, kids learn how to communicate (in English, but it's more than
just spoken written word), how to behave, 'how to learn something' i.e. not
the knowledge, but the processing of learning/doing tasks, basic
responsibilities and organization. The 'details' of most subjects are simply
less important. Nobody cares if someone has memorized every state capital, but
we do care that people are ready, engaged, can focus, communicate, accomplish
things etc..

~~~
jwagenet
> The discussion in some ways should be more about good jobs, stabilizing
> dangerous neighbourhoods, flushing out gangs, giving troubled kids a place
> to hang out + role models, making the learning environment safe where kids
> can focus on learning.

I think these issues are direct symptoms of poor education quality, which is
itself a symptom of the issues you mention. It's a vicious cycle that
perpetuates as the kids become adults and parents who create the negative
environment and can't support their kids themselves. It's a long game, but
investing in education is probably the "easy" place to start while kids are
malleable. Adults are harder to reeducate; good luck flushing out the gangs,
what are you going to do with those folks? Do as IPS and provide resources for
parents to get training for things like GEDs so they can hopefully get better
jobs. Provide after school programs and a safe sub community. It'll take time,
but the new generation can hopefully grow up in a better place.

~~~
sonnyblarney
I see your point, and I do agree there is to some degree a feedback loop, but
I don't think 'bad schools' are a primary driver.

And good point about creating a 'bubble' where kids can learn, you're right,
tactical solutions might be apt.

But when the factories disappeared in the 1970's-1990's and the jobs
disappeared, a lot of places went to pot.

If there were jobs - kids could bring their own meals, families would be more
stable, there'd be less crime, there'd be a foundational social fabric.

Social programs pose all sorts of 'commons' problems ... the best kind of
social program is 'a decent job'.

I still can't understand why Google, Facebook and some big banks talk all
sorts of 'social progress' crap, but the thing that we need the most:
distribution of income - is not on their radar.

I wish Google would open 'service and support' centres in the worst
neighbourhoods in America and just give people jobs to do whatever. That would
earn my respect.

They can start in East Palo Alto, literally only a few hundred meters from
their offices ... I always found the decrepit existence of E. Palo Alto such a
stain on the Valley as a whole.

------
randomacct3847
Isn’t it obvious that funding public schools with _local_ property taxes is
what has created this messed up system where your zip code has a
disproportionate impact on the quality of your education?

~~~
bzbarsky
Just about every single state has state-level funding for schools that acts to
even out those disparities.

Worse yet, spending (per pupil) on its own turns out to not be a very good
predictor of quality of education. It doesn't even seem to be a great
predictor if you control for parents' SES, from what I can see for various
school districts in Boston's suburbs.

Put another way, a number of quite distressed school districts spend more than
various "good" school districts, with much worse results. DC public schools
are a poster child here, but not the only example by any means. So it's not
just a matter of funding levels at all.

------
luckydata
The stuff that school is doing is really just common sense and the success
they are experiencing is both a symptom that what we always known works...
still works but also that we do a real shit job at education in this country.

This is not a problem you can fix with technology, the only technology needed
is good food every day for the kids and parents (or guardians) that can be
involved in their kid's education.

------
somethoughts
I've often wondered about the effectiveness of donations to supplemental after
school/summer time tutoring/coaching in under-performing school districts
[1][2] versus donations to full time, private charter schools such as this
one.

It seems supplemental after school/summer time solutions would build on the
existing public school system and fill in the gap between 3pm-6pm and during
summer where they are likely to be less supervised. It'd also be more scale-
able to more children. I also imagine it also would produce less angst among
public school teacher unions as its more supplemental to them versus replacing
them.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley_Education_Found...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley_Education_Foundation)

[2] [https://svefoundation.org/get-involved/events/annual-
dinner/](https://svefoundation.org/get-involved/events/annual-dinner/)

~~~
jrumbut
This is not a charter school or private school, it is a public school that
received additional money on top of its usual funding from Lebron James.

~~~
somethoughts
Thanks - missed that - I guess I must have skimmed the article too fast. In
that case, this is a great example of a very full featured supplemental
program versus the replacement program.

------
socrates1998
It's great to see this. The only issue I have is how replicable this formula
is.

I think you can apply a couple of programs and concepts on a large scale to
whole communities, but this is a very expensive school with a lot of resources
behind it, not to mention a very powerful celebrity endorser who has a lot to
lose if this school fails.

There is a small private school that just opened up in my area (about 4 years
old). It has a powerful businessman who is the founder. Class sizes are less
than 10 kids with two teachers per class. That's about a 5:1 ratio, most
public schools would kill for anything better close to 10:1 with most academic
classes are 20-30 students for one teacher.

This small private school also has a lot of amenities, like a ton of tech for
the students.

While this is a great school, it's just a place for elites to educate their
students.

I applaud everyone in this private school and Lebron's school.

I hope we can use some of their ideas and programs to a larger scale.

------
Halluxfboy009
Let's list every inner city school across America (is there such a list?),
list the "promise picks" that can be funded in them, and then have a place
benefactors can sign up.

------
tabtab
Good, his ball team isn't. ;-)

------
exabrial
Amazing to see a privately funded school do so well, especially one that
targets at risk children. I hope the lessons learned here inspire more private
investment in education.

~~~
dhritzkiv
Or that it brings attention to neglected demographics and inspires greater
demand and political will for improved public funding and resource allocation.

Privately funded white knighting should not be the answer.

------
_lessthan0
Top comments, shock people cant feel good about something because it didnt
happen to them. I was hoping for some uplifting commentary but like all other
social media sites HN is going down a bad path.

~~~
spraak
The predominant attitude is cynical

~~~
_lessthan0
I think we are on the same page

