I salute LeBron James for investing his funding in a public school, not a charter school.
Mr. James understands that the overwhelming preponderance of children in this country attend public schools, and we have a responsibility to make them work for all children. Charter schools and vouchers are an escape from the central problem, not an answer. He is way smarter than Donald Trump or Betsy DeVos or John Kasich or Jeb Bush or Rick Snyder or Rick Scott or Donald Trump or Reed Hastings or Eli Broad or any of the other billionaire builders of escape hatches that lead nowhere.
He is investing in wraparound services, as public schools do when they have the resources.
What he is demonstrating is that every public school can be its best when it has the resources to do what kids need.
We don’t need to hand public schools, their building and their public funding over to private entrepreneurs to prove what we know: Good schools are costly when kids are poor. They need smaller classes and additional resources.
This article in The Nation says exactly what I believe: “LeBron’s Education Promise Needs to Become This Country’s Promise.”
Every child should have the wraparound services, the small classes, the job training for parents, the caring environment of a family, that LeBron James’ school will offer its students.
LeBron James’s promise to the students in his school should be the promise that America makes to all its children.
I laughed when I read that Donald Trump slammed LeBron James and called him “stupid.” Trump doesn’t have the brains, the heart, or the accomplishments of LeBron James.
And I laughed again when Melania sent out a tweet congratulating LeBron after her husband mocked him. I hope she visits his PUBLIC school.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Have you seen those signs to “adopt” a highway? Wouldn’t it be incredible if every celebrity adopted a Title 1 public school district?
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As a Title I public school teacher, I can only imagine. It would be incredible!
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It would be incredible as an exercise in glorifying wealth.
As a society, as mandated by states’ constitutions, we should be providing those resources as a matter of fact, not as some plaything of the rich and famous.
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Amen to that, Duane.
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Good point, Duane.
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LeBron understands the value of community and stability in the lives of at-risk youth. The students that LeBron will serve will no doubt come from homes where poverty has taken a toll. These students may have also experience trauma. The last thing students like these need is to be tossed into some unstable market based scheme where the school disappears when it fails to deliver profit to rich investors. These students need the assistance of trained professionals, not some edu-tourists trying to pay off a college loan. With LeBron and the city of Akron behind them, these students have the opportunity to turn their lives around. This could be a public-private partnership based on investment in young people, not profit for a few at the expense of many.
I hope they avoid the “score” trap when they measure results and I hope they use multi-measures to evaluate the program. I hope they incorporate some career guidance and some vocational opportunities as well. While college offers opportunities for some, it is not a realistic goal for all. We need lots of health care support workers, and people with technical skills as well. I wish LeBron and Akron success with this new school.
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Your last paragraph says it all. I hope the powers with purse strings Listen to the public school teachers who are WITH the students and not rely on the “score” trap, too. That would be “IT” for me.
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Ed reformers are saying it doesn’t matter if it’s a public school- they’ll support it if it’s a good school.
Why don’t they invest anything in public schools, then?
If their claim is they’re “agnostics” then why does investment in existing public schools tank when they capture a state government, like they have captured Ohio?
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“Why don’t they invest anything in public schools, then?”
This is the hypocrisy of “reform.” If they valued public schools, they would invest in them. It has been proven that the market is no magic bullet for education. It provides no real value to students, it provides return on investment to investors. This is the goal of so-called reform.
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Amen.
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I am delighted with this development. I wish that more individuals and NGOs would become involved in our nation’s public schools.
It is time to be fair. Estimates are that 50-75% of the costs for this school’s operations will be borne by the taxpayers of Akron Ohio. see
https://thepoliticalinsider.com/lebron-james-promise-school/
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Of course, Akron public schools bear most of the cost. It is a PUBLIC school, not a charter school.
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It’s particularly important in Ohio because we have an ed reform majority in the legislature and in the governor’s administration, so public schools in Ohio get very little attention or support.
It’s not true of all of state government- some of the electeds support public schools and I’m sure “career” staff in government support public schools, but the ed reform politicians here are openly hostile to public schools.
We had an ed reform leader in the legislature who announced all public schools are “socialist”
These are the people we’re paying to “improve” our public schools- people who work only to eradicate our public schools. It’s a real disservice to public school students and a rip-off to citizens.
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Voters need to cull the for profit herd in Ohio government so students can be represented by those that are willing to invest in them.
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There is a gray lining in this silver cloud.
While I agree that LeBron’s generosity and choice of public school are admirable, this kind of philanthropy inadvertently perpetuates the conservative mythology of a thousand points of light. Public schools will not thrive on the basis of “public-private” partnerships, as retired teacher suggests. Such “partnerships” may be innocent enough in some cases – like LeBron’s, I suspect – but they also invite the “private” partners to drive values and curriculum by virtue of their financial “investment.” This has already deeply perverted many schools and colleges, where priorities are skewed by donors and wealthy trustees, on whom the institutions depend. Private support of public schools also allows the public to abdicate their responsibility to provide an equitable education to all children.
I don’t mean to rain on the parade. LeBron’s generosity seems heartfelt, but would be unnecessary in a truly just society.
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I agree with you. Government-private partnerships are no real solution, but I applaud LeBron’s authentic philanthropy. The sad reality is with so many right wing conservatives and libertarians in power, the government is refusing to do its job. It is the state’s responsibility to provide education, and Ohio and other states are not doing their jobs. Voters need to get them out of office.
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I agree!!!
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Since so many celebrities and sports stars are investing in charter schools, I was delighted to see LeBron invest in a public school. I will not scoff at his generosity.
He shows Ohio and the nation how we all need to invest in great public schools, not just little charters for strivers. Or corporate chains that swallow whole cities.
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Living down the street from Akron I am amazed that a prominent sports figure (who graduated from a parochial high school, no less) is able to figure out that a public school would best serve the needs of his community. He’s obviously way smarter than Ohio’s “legislators” but then, he’s not in it for the money and he’s not an education careerist.
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Shirley Ende-Saxe,
Graduating from a parochial (I’m assuming you mean Catholic) school does not necessarily mean that one cannot see injustices around them nor not be able to critically look at society. I went K-12 Catholic parochial and learned how to critically think and knew by the time I graduated that at least the religious stuff was nonsense. I could also sense the dichotomy at the time (60s-70s) between the liberal and conservative factions of the Catholic Church. But then the schools I attended were mostly filled with working class family students and most certainly weren’t wealthy/elite by any stretch. And I saw through the “We Catholics are the best schools” and public schools are for losers nonsense that was drilled into our heads.
Each school sector has its own reason for being. I side with the public schools wherein the reason for being is “To promote the welfare of the individual so that each person may savor the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the fruits of their own industry.”
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I support Catholic schools. I give money to support Catholic education. I pay taxes to support public schools. Everyone who wants a religious education for their own child should expect to pay for it and the churches should pay for it. Not the government
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YEP!
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You must agree that while many of the schools and colleges you refer to are funded in a clandestine way, masking the source of the money in a way to legitimize the scholarship, Lebron is just handing over the money to people in the public system who think they have an idea that will help. I think this is remarkably different than the Koch Brothers funding an economics department.
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Yes, I do agree. Good point. But my primary concern is the general trend toward turning to private dollars rather than meeting public obligations. That LeBron’s example is decidedly different that the Koch brothers does not exempt it from being part of a drift from collective responsibility.
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I had to laugh when I saw Governor Kasich defending LeBron James from the Trump Administration.
Kasich has been the worst governor for public schools in my adult lifetime. He has absolutely zero interest in our schools. He doesn’t even PRETEND to care about or value public school students. They may as well not exist.
LeBron James is much more education-centered than the Kasich Administration with just this one school and we don’t even pay James! We pay Kasich administration employees.
Everyone who actually lives here and has some involvement with a public school knows it, too. The Kasich Administration has been NOTHING but loss for public schools- they contribute nothing and they take funding.
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That’s nice!
Sent from my iPad
>
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Let’s all get out a letter to thank Mr.James for his support of public education and our students.
I feel the press has not done much on reporting that this gift was made to a public school-which WAS NOT a charter school.
When we get back to our classes in the next few weeks, get teachers and parents energized to write those thank you’d to LeBron.
This is the type of support for public schools which needs to be recognized and thanked by all of us!!
Abby Vaile
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this is a hopeful idea: that so many who have seen their neighborhoods and communities suffering from the charter/choice insanity will let James know how important his decision has become to not only his own neighborhood, but to the entire nation
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Why not complete the list of democrats who have received money from the ed reformers who are now trying to change their tune
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The Ndtwork for Public Education will publish a report on the zillionaire interfering in school board elections after Labor Day. Watch for it. Politico probably won’t mention it.
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To do list for Wednesday:
•pay graduating student’s university tuition
•find job for parent of student
•put food in school’s family pantry
•more bicycles
•snub the racist in the White House
•play basketball better than anyone ever
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The truly great thing about this is that other celebs look up to LeBron. They might think twice about opening a charter scam.
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