You may have heard that the superstar basketball player signed a contract with the Los Angeles Lakers for four years for $153 Million.
James has an active foundation in his hometown, Akron, Ohio. He is funding a model school in collaboration with the Akron public schools. It will NOT be a charter school.
“The Akron native and NBA superstar created the foundation in 2004 and it has since grown from the basics — giving new bicycles to children — to an organization that will be opening its own school at the end of the month. All the while, its mission has been to help Akron’s most at-risk students reach academic success.
“The next time the world will hear from James will be on Monday, July 30, Campbell said. That’s when he’ll be in Akron at the opening of I PROMISE School, a joint project between the foundation and the Akron Public Schools system. The school on West Market Street in Akron will welcome more than 240 third- and fourth-graders in an academic setting that will emphasize a STEM curriculum and a hands-on approach. The school also will offer wraparound services to students’ families. The goal is that by 2022 the school will house students in first through eighth grade.”
Thank you, LeBron, for giving back instead of using your wealth to harm the public schools that helped you.
The foundation’s I PROMISE network works with Akron students in several ways to help them stay in school. Those complete the program through graduation will receive scholarships to the University of Akron.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
and that is what the wealthy should be doing… supporting the common good with thier great wealth, instead of being predators who take as much as they can and give nothing back.
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and RECOGNIZING how often many have been blessed by having personal access to a stable, local, traditional public school system
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He’s a great player, but even a better man!
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LeBron James is a smart, politically aware basketball star. His foundation has already built and renovated homes for mostly single mothers and their children in Cleveland and Akron. LeBron worked with Nicole Curtis of HGTV’s “Rehab Addict,” in order to renovate these homes. This school is another example of LeBron’s sage philanthropy. He understands that an excellent public school will help build the community and be a source of pride in the neighborhood.
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Good for LeBron for not doing what other pro athletes have done and lending his name to a charter school. He has always been willing to speak out on issues and campaigned for Hillary. Glad to see he hasn’t fallen for the privatization rhetoric (despite attending a parochial school himself).
Along with Steve Kerr and Gregg Popovich, LeBron is one of the good guys in professional sports willing to go out on a limb politically. I wish he’d stayed and then run for Senate or Governor of Ohio.
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He can play out his brilliant career then return to run for Office in Ohio.
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True, but had he stayed and won more championships, he would have had an easier time. I think the fans understand his leaving now more than “the Decision 1” but it still leaves him open to attacks and I’m sure if he ran there would be plenty of those. It would be somewhat harder if he won as many championships as Jordan did in Chicago.
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Politicians aren’t his role models, Warren Buffett is. LeBron plans to make change through using wealth for social causes. He won’t have time for elective office.
I live in Akron and LeBron is truly something special that has nothing to do with athletics. He’s great for our community and we know, regardless of where he moves, this all always be his home. He’ll never forget where he came from.
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Still very sad he left Cleveland, but good for him for stepping up for kids!
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Now if only other “philanthropists” would follow his example . . .
Our country would be a much better place if people would volunteer their time, their efforts, their talents, and/or, of course, their dollars, to give a helping hand to those in need.
Kudos to those who are “walking the talk”.
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LeBron is worth more than his recent $154 million contract as a free agent. His net worth is pegged at $440 million.
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Good for Lebron about time public school beneficies did something!
Sent from my iPhone
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Oh, time will tell how this works! The rhetoric sounds fantadtic but maybe not the liberal political Indoctrination. As those involved on board must close their eyes on the children with problems and their brushes with the law! Hope not! As we have learned with Obama’s ‘Dear Letters’ Ask David Hogg!
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The last paragraph is a direct quote from the linked source, but there’s no indication of that in the post.
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I make mistakes
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Perhaps correct them?
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“Perhaps correct them?”
I’ll answer that question from my experience. I have four blogs. One of those blogs with almost 800k hits has more than 2,300 blog posts. Imagine the word count. I’m sure it is more than a million words by now.
Diane’s numbers are MUCH larger. Makes my stats tiny in comparison.
No way am I going back to start correcting any mistakes no one has pointed out and even if someone starts pointing them out I probably won’t go back and change many of them because that takes time and my days are already full.
There aren’t enough hours in a day and days in a week or year. Impossible, when we are posting so much free stuff no one has to pay for. Unlike conspiracy theory machine Alex Jones — this Jones should be in a straight jacket locked in a padded cell with a mask over his mouth that seals in his voice — who deliberately makes mistakes and ignores them as if they don’t exist.
Then there is the fact that we aren’t making any money from our blogs. Mistakes happen. That is what it means to be human.
Because these blogs are free, there’s no money to pay for a staff to fix mistakes. We are limited by the fact that we only have one set of eyes and ten fingers.
As long as those mistakes can be contextually corrected through the eyes of the visitors, I don’t see a problem.
It’s too bad that Donald Trump and his deplorable followers can’t admit they are making some horrible mistakes.
Now, if people were paying money to read Diane’s blog, let’s say $9.99 a month, maybe she’d have the money to hire a staff, but what would happen if Diane’s put her blog behind a pay wall?
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This response should be to Lofthouse’s comment defending this mistake, but WordPress does some wonky stuff and won’t let me reply directly.
Diane already admitted it was a mistake. But not changing it and brushing it off as taking too much time is ridiculous and silly, particularly for someone who claims to be a scholar.
There’s a word for presenting another’s work as your own: plagiarism.
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CAMathGuy,
I’m the one that wrote the fact that we don’t always have the time to correct typos and/or other types of errors in our blog posts. Diane didn’t write that. You know my name. I’m not hiding as a sock puppet. I wrote it. I’m not Diane Ravitch.
And I stand by what I wrote. No alleged “Grammar Nazi” is going to intimidate me and stop me from expressing what I think.
Your failed attempt to accuse Diane of “plagiarism” is the kind of tricks the Alt-Right Deep State lying, misinformation, conspiracy theory generating fake-media machine does all the time.
If Diane wants to correct the error you are alleging is plagiarism, then she has the freedom to make that correction.
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Thanks for the hilarious reply, Mr. Lofthouse. You certainly have those creative juices flowing this morning!
Bonus points for making both an Alt-Right reference AND a Nazi mention! That’s like Godwin’s law, but with a little extra modern pepper on top. Kudos to you.
Merely asking for two quotation marks to appear around a sentence someone else wrote is not some Deep State conspiracy. Rather, it’s the kind of thing real scholars are expected to do. Heck, even non-scholars ought to abide by that very common practice.
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CAMathGuy, this isn’t my Blog. Thank you for pointing out the TWO missing quotation marks. Wow, what a wonderful guy you are. I still think you are an alleged “Grammar Nazi”.
For your information, calling someone a Grammar Nazi has nothing to do with Hitler. It’s a common term.
“Grammar Nazi
noun (pl. -s)
1. A person who uses proper grammar at all times, esp. online in emails, chatrooms, instant messages and webboard posts; a proponent of grammatical correctness. Often one who spells correctly as well.
“2. a – A person who believes proper grammar (and spelling) should be used by everyone whenever possible. b – One who attempts to persuade or force others to use proper grammar and spelling. c – One who uses proper grammar and spelling to subtly mock or deride those who do not; an exhibitor of grammatical superiority. d – One who advocates linguistic clarity; an opponent of 1337-speak. e – One who corrects others’ grammar; the spelling police.”
We are so fortunate to have you here to correct all of our errors and I appreciate your failed attempt to mock me.
I went back and checked the actual post, and I think Diane added those quotation marks.
I still stand by my original comment that most if not all bloggers, except Grammar Nazis (I’m adding this shot), can’t be expected to catch every error. Although, I’m sure it is appreciated when someone politely points out an error and why it should be corrected.
But to allege two missing quotation marks is plagiarism is too much and often the sign of a troll. Sockpuppet names also lends support to the troll allegation.
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How did I miss this post yesterday? I grew up watching the Kareem Abdul Jabbar Lakers, John Wooden legacy Lakers. (John Wooden, talk about a great teacher!) Might this be a return of heart and glory to the old team that was built on unselfish play? (By the way, speaking of play, curmudgucation blogspot has a couple good, recent rips.) I am very glad to know this about Lebron.
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I am a National Consultant in the Community Wraparound Practice Model working with ethnic minority children and would love to be involved in Lebron’s school initiative.
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