LeBron James Opens STEM-Based School For At-Risk Students In Ohio (sbnation.com)

NBA superstar LeBron James is opening a new school that many are calling a "game changer." It extends the length of a traditional school day and focuses on teaching a STEM curriculum to students who have a higher probability of failing academically or dropping out of school. An anonymous Slashdot reader shares a report from SB Nation: LeBron James' I Promise School opened Monday to serve low-income and at-risk students in his hometown, and the public school could be an agent of change in the eastern Ohio city. The institution is the intersection of James' philanthropic Family Foundation and the I Promise Network he helped kickstart. I Promise began as an Akron-based non-profit aimed at boosting achievement for younger students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Now the movement has the means to educate these students year-round. I Promise will feature longer school days, a non-traditional school year, and greater access to the school, its facilities, and its teachers during down time for students. That's a formula aimed at replicating some of the at-home support children may be missing when it comes to schoolwork. The school has also anchored its curriculum in math and science-based teaching, dipping into the STEM -- science, technology, engineering, and math -- curriculum that prepares students for the jobs of the future.

Comments

Noble but misplaced

[TimothyHollins]

Honorable, but not quite useful.

If you want to help, build a school for the unusually gifted. Take those out of regular schools where the pace is low and put them together so they can push each other to greatness.

Of those that have a higher probability of failing, only a certain percent are failing because of the school itself. Many will be failing due to the situation at home, or simply because they don't have the mental faculties to comprehend. Those that show up will have a wide variety of different needs (some may be physically handicapped, some may be mentally handicapped, some may need therapy or counseling), and trying to put them all in one place is sure to cause further problems. If it's "low-income" students, putting them all together is sure to cause problems with violence, drugs, and bad behavior.

If you want low-income students to excel, put one or two in classes with mid to high income students so they get inundated with a better culture and attitude instead, that will do far more good.

Re:Noble but misplaced

[h4ck7h3p14n37]

Why spend resources on the underachievers when the overachievers can accomplish ten times as much?

I was in my school district's "gifted" program when I was younger and from what I understand it's pretty common for some people to feel like the gifted kids should fewer resources to help them achieve instead of more. I guess the belief is that you can raise the bottom kids up, but can you?

I would think it would be better to get poor people to stop having children they can't raise properly than to try to correct for bad parenting with a special school.

Re:Noble but misplaced

[ShanghaiBill]

Many will be failing due to the situation at home ...

Hence the longer hours. Low income students often don't learn much outside school, so keeping them in school longer may help.

If you want low-income students to excel, put one or two in classes with mid to high income students so they get inundated with a better culture and attitude instead, that will do far more good.

... until the high income parents realize that their kids are being used by the system in dumbed down classes, and not being appropriately educated for their own sake, and then they will pack up and move to the suburbs.

Re:Noble but misplaced

[PopeRatzo]

the uncounted trillions spent by government trying to make sure every person can handle consumer math

"Uncounted trillions"? Maybe more money should have been spent teaching you numbers and counting.

Re:Noble but misplaced

[PopeRatzo]

I guess the belief is that you can raise the bottom kids up, but can you?

Yes.

Re: Noble but misplaced

[Anonymous Coward]

Sir,

The schools for rich, well-educated students are already plentiful. James' efforts are more than just noble. The under-privilged by definition normally lack opportunity and access to attend a school like this one. Some may fail but there will be successful students as well. And of those, each one who graduates will be a testiment to the need for a public school like this.

Everyone who wants it should have access to a good education. It benefits society as well as the student.

James should be commended.

Re:Noble but misplaced

[JaredOfEuropa]

Perhaps the extra resources will ensure that those who are underachieving (because of environment rather than a lack of smarts) grow up to be productive members of society rather than burdens. And help their future children to a better future as well. That may be a better way to spend money than focusing on a few gifted kids who will probably do well anyway. I dunno. Maybe we ought to do both. Good education means paying attention to each particular student’s needs and adapting accordingly.

It’s not easy, though. A lot of the programs for troubled kids were successful because of the unwavering dedication of a few individuals, but turned out to be hard to replicate well or scale up successfully.

Re:Noble but misplaced

[ShanghaiBill]

When the rich move out of the city, it is called "White flight", which is bad.
When the rich move into the city, it is called "Gentrification", which is bad.

Re:Noble but misplaced

[PopeRatzo]

Not according to census data.

Better look again. Census data is about a decade out of date. Look at demographic data and housing prices in cities.

Re:Noble but misplaced

[CaptainDork]

Yo, dude or dudette as may apply.

Yer plane is inverted.

Re:Noble but misplaced

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who was labeled at-risk and then grew up to get a CS degree and my worst social transgression was a pub intox. I can tell you that nobody is going to give a fair break to these kids just by transplanting them into honors classes across town. I was in gifted programs a few times but each time something would come by to knock me back down.

In middle school I argued my way into the accelerated algebra program and did good but then in high school they put me back into 7th grade algebra one under the justification that I might have missed something, zero proof or elaboration, just that maybe I might have missed something in the class that people love to brag they haven't used since school.

In highschool I was in the gifted biology program which apparently got parents complaining to the administration that it wasn't fair that their dumb tryhards were failing and yet I was still in the program. The teacher was unaware of my IEP or that there was anything different about me until the administration told him I was being removed from the class. Of course I was a nightmare for most of the special ed teachers so administration assumed that if they said I was getting dropped for behavior it would have made perfect sense to the biology teacher. Things really went downhill after I realized no matter what anyone promised there was no way out for me.

I remember once in middle school we were asked what we'd be doing as adults. I said I wanted to be a scientist or engineer probably doing something with computers. Exactly where I am today and a room full of future used car salesmen, factory workers, and Amway suckers had the nerve to laugh at me. It took several minutes before I realized what they were laughing at.

I think that a lot of people would benefit from not being singled out. In my case I think avoiding repetitive lessons would have been all that I needed. In math they could have given me 2 or 3 problems from the current lesson, and 2 or 3 problems from recent lessons to make sure I didn't forget. When I can barely sit through a whole movie sometimes and don't hear what people are saying unless I deliberately watch their lips move... they stuck me in a small classroom, where the teacher was by far the least interesting person in the room, and expected me to trod through 50 problems worth of long division. These are educated experts?

It's cause they didn't actually care. They mostly weren't there to give me special help and they didn't care if any of them had the potential to excel. They were there to keep me away from their latest crop of used car salesmen, factory workers, and amway salesmen.

This was in a community not too different than Akron, OH. During my time I encountered a handful of other kids who were being wasted by the system. They went on to be normal adults and some of them are even smarter than me. I often try to get them into better careers but I think the system has baked low expectations into their personalities so deeply that they won't come out of their normal little niches and risk failing.

A lot of outcomes could be different, a lot less people in our jails, a lot less teen moms, a lot less of all kinds of things if these kids just had an environment that wasn't constantly screaming freak and failure in their faces, a few teachers who actually do their fucking jobs and don't quietly believe your future is jail, pregnancy, or institutionalization.

Re:Noble but misplaced

[phantomfive]

Honorable, but not quite useful.

It's useful for the kids it helps.

Re:Noble but misplaced

[registrations_suck]

When the rich move out of the city, it is called "White flight", which is bad.
When the rich move into the city, it is called "Gentrification", which is bad.

+5, Insightful.

Re:Noble but misplaced

[AHuxley]

The USA, France and UK have been placing computers and extra funds all over their schools for decades.
The spending per student would have changed any lack of spending and the "environment" over decades and generations.

The average test results remained the same after all the changes, computers, funding, books, calculators, internet, laptops, new buildings, more teachers, new teachers.
If it was "environment" every well funded school would have seen dramatic results and kept great results for decades.
Lots of new tax payers money went into "adapting accordingly" all over the USA and the decades of test results remained on average the same.

Re:Noble but misplaced

[registrations_suck]

When the rich move out of the city, it is called "White flight", which is bad.
When the rich move into the city, it is called "Gentrification", which is bad.

I think you may be close to a breakthrough, buddy. You should consider the possibility that rich people are just bad.

-5, Moron.

Re: Noble but misplaced

[Anonymous Coward]

The schools for rich, well-educated students are already plentiful.

Except a lot of gifted kids aren't rich (the vast majority of them in fact). Growing up, I was a gifted poor/working-class kid, My parents couldn't afford to send me to private school and there were no programs for lower-income gifted students. Cruelly, I was actually punished for my academic interest and success. If I had been failing at school, I would have had all kinds of programs and money available to help me. I watched as everyone else got help but me.

It did have an upside, though. It taught me to learn on my own, since no one else was going to help me. My teachers spent all their time on the troublemakers. All the special programs were for the "at-risk" kids. Meanwhile, I spent all my time in the library learning and reading. Someone once asked me if there was ever a special teacher who inspired me. My answer was "Fuck no. My teachers never did shit for me. *I* inspired me." It taught me to rely on myself and not expect others to do anything for me.

Re:Noble but misplaced

[PopeRatzo]

They update the census data every two years with estrimated data.

Read it can weep retard [census.gov]

Wait, can you really not see that even the slim data you have cited supports my thesis that wealthy are moving back to cities and poorer people are moving to suburbs?

And really, Buffalo, New York? You believe that a small dead industrial town of a few hundred thousand is representative of urban America?

I hereby declare you stupid.

Re: Noble but misplaced

[alvinrod]

Also, even if what he is doing is a colossally stupid idea, at least he tried something and failed so that others will be able to learn from this example.

If the problems of society were so easy to fix that the solutions were obvious, we would not have these problems. Even if this fails, it will provide insights into the next set of solutions.

Besides, James is using his own money for this. Would anyone complain if he had instead spent it on a huge yacht?

Re: Noble but misplaced

[alvinrod]

So LeBron James is bad then?

Bernie Sanders is even in the 1% now. How bad is he in your estimation?

Re:Noble but misplaced

[PopeRatzo]

You're not looking at the statistics you cite. In every example so far, house prices in cities have gone up faster than in suburbs. In every case.

Your citations are proving my point.

Also, all the population and demographic numbers you cite are from 2010. That was the last census. If you look at all the more recent data, you will see the word "estimate".

Re:Noble but misplaced

[JaredOfEuropa]

By “environment” I meant the domestic situation and neighbourhoods these kids are in, rather than the stuff they have at their disposal in the classroom. The kind of factors that make them “at-risk”. These are also factors that are hard to solve just by throwing money at the problem.

Re: Noble but misplaced

[TeknoHog]

I feel for you, and I've also come to witness the problem from a teacher's perspective. Incidentally, a colleague of mine recently wrote about this problem in the local paper. Besides the usual problem of losing talent, he also worries about gifted students getting frustrated and causing trouble for others. In the extreme, you'll have geniuses turned mass murderers.

I can understand that level of anger towards the society, as it first asks you to study and work hard, but then punishes you for being too smart. These days I try to have as little to do with the society as possible, working by myself and with a close set of friends. Still, I have to do things like pay taxes.

It did have an upside, though. It taught me to learn on my own, since no one else was going to help me. My teachers spent all their time on the troublemakers. All the special programs were for the "at-risk" kids. Meanwhile, I spent all my time in the library learning and reading. Someone once asked me if there was ever a special teacher who inspired me. My answer was "Fuck no. My teachers never did shit for me. *I* inspired me." It taught me to rely on myself and not expect others to do anything for me.

I was always good at math, but there was nothing interesting about it at school, until I switched to the IB Diploma programme at the age of 16. I suddenly had a couple of very inspiring teachers, and I went on to one of these universities that look like Hogwarts.

However, following my Master's degree, I've found it hard to fit in the academic world, with strangely similar feelings to the school years. I'm back to being the smart kid in a world that only values diligent and submissive workers -- and this includes universities. There have been few exceptions, but my career really took off a few years ago after I quit the last teaching job.

Re:Noble but misplaced

[sysrammer]

Good answer.

I can think of one "gifted" kid that should fewer resources.

Re:Noble but misplaced

[AHuxley]

Nations have pushed funds into new schools. New ways of teaching.
The USA has attempted to alter the "neighbourhoods" by moving students to "better" schools.
The US tried to further education with lunches, music, arts, orchestra and bands.
Magnet schools, altering school districts. New curriculum ideas and changes to math. Academic tracks.
The grades stayed the same and all the decades of changes to environment did not seem to work.

Re: Noble but misplaced

[PopeRatzo]

House prices are controlled by demand

BINGO! And when does demand increase? When more people want something.

Re:Noble but misplaced

[DRJlaw]

Honorable, but not quite useful.

[blah blah blah]

LeBron James lacks the experience to correctly design and operate school, whereas I myself lack both the experience and the resources to correctly design and operate a school, and am very certain that Mr. James did not hire anyone with the experience to correctly design and operate a school.

We'll get back to you after due consideration...

Re:Noble but misplaced

[Green Mountain Bot]

When the rich move out of the city, it is called "White flight", which is bad.

If you don't think it's bad, look at Detroit and tell me how the city benefited from it.

When the rich move into the city, it is called "Gentrification", which is bad.

That's not entirely accurate. Gentrification is when new development raises existing rents such that the people already living there are unable to remain. There are ways for cities to redevelop in such a way that this doesn't happen (for example, by requiring any new developments to have a certain percentage of units that will rent for similar amounts as existing housing), but that does require us to admit that a purely free market doesn't meet the needs of large numbers of people when it comes to things like housing.

Re: Noble but misplaced

[Green Mountain Bot]

... as it first asks you to study and work hard, but then punishes you for being too smart.

Well, working hard is not the same thing as being smart. The powers that be want people who work hard but aren't smart. Those are the people who will be happy to do whatever you ask for however little you will pay. People who are smart threaten that paradigm.

Re:Noble but misplaced

[squiggleslash]

White flight referred to any group of white people leaving a city due to a concerted campaign based upon racism. There's a story of a realtor who hired a black woman to push a baby carriage around a neighborhood, specifically so that they could encourage white people to move out to the suburbs, making money from both the sale of the new house, and the sale of the old one.

Gentrification isn't caused by people moving into a city, or what people moving in is called; it's the redevelopment of an area in order to make it more attractive, with one of the side effects being that more people want to move there, so causing a rise in property values, so resulting in people with higher incomes than existing residents moving in.

Gentrification can be good or bad. It's good if most existing residents own their own homes. It's bad, and can destroy communities if most existing residents don't, because their rents rise, and they end up being unable to afford to live there any more.

Re:What about fixing the student loan risk?

[serviscope_minor]

oh fuck off

I dont's think you actually care. All you're doing is shooting off on the internet about how while someone is fixing one problem or doesn't meet your exacting standards because it's not the problem you're currently vaguely thinking about.

This is what aboutism at it's finest. You contribute absolutely nothing while trying to divert the discussion.

Pathetic.

Re:What about fixing the student loan risk?

[HornWumpus]

The risk?

Ok. No more student loans for basket weaving subjects. Not completely fixed, but better, good first step.

Not what you meant?

Sad news.

[Anonymous Coward]

A strong back is a terrible thing to waste.

Re:What about fixing the student loan risk?

[rogoshen1]

Your totally right, he should keep his money and do absolutely nothing to help kids who are growing up in a shitty environment.

Nice Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

"better culture and attitude instead" and racist to boot

Re:Nice Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

Lay off, buddy. He dindu nuffin.

Your virtue signaling won't win you any prizes here. Professor Dr. Ruth Naomi Finklesteinowitz-Cohen doesn't hang out here.

Every town needs one of these

[Aero77]

From the article:

How does the I Promise School differ from any other school?

The school will operate with a longer-than-normal school year, with a focus on accelerated learning to bring kids up to speed who otherwise might be lagging. In addition, there is a focus on combating factors outside of the classroom that could cause children to struggle.

Services are available to help students deal from stress related to parents who are struggling to make ends meet. In addition there are activities to prevent the kids from having too much idle time and potentially getting into trouble.

The school also provides services to families, which include job placement assistance for parents and an on-site food bank that will allow parents to pick out foods they can prepare at home.

Noble gesture on his part

[erp_consultant]

I suppose we could debate how successful it will be but at least he's stepping up and trying to help. Interestingly he opened the school in his home town, not his new digs in LA. In contrast, I don't recall Michael Jordan doing a damn thing for the underprivileged in Brooklyn (his hometown). Magic Johnson? Well, he opened a bunch of restaurants in East LA but this is a for profit venture.

For the record, I'm not a huge LeBron fan but in this case I think he deserves some credit. He didn't go to college because he was blessed with exceptional sports talent but for the vast, vast majority of these kids there is no sports scholarship in their future. The only way they are getting out of poverty is through education.

Re:Noble gesture on his part

[fredrated]

Good post, better than most of the drivel posted so far.

Re:Noble gesture on his part

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no reason why you should compare what he's doing against Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson, because certainly he's not there in the same category basketball-achievement-wise, nor in terms of skill. What he's doing here is honorable, but your comment is another textbook example of what-about-ism.

You do know we already have that

[rsilvergun]

right? I went to magnet schools when I was a kid for science and tech. It's where I learned to program even though my family was generally too poor to own a computer until the early 90s (single mom, nurse, her income went way up around then).

Those trillions are very well spent. Teaching your most vulnerable math, science and literature means they can think and reason better. You want that, because otherwise they become an easily manipulated and increasingly destitute demographic. Sooner or later they'll find someone to fix the problems they have, like a fascist dictator. That never ends well for the well educated among a population.

Because the underachievers are dangerous

[rsilvergun]

when they're uneducated. By definition most people are average. They can only do so much. You spend money on those because they're a massive population and when they get desperate an uneducated populace will put a dictator in charge to solve their problems. OTOH if you educate them they'll understand that putting a dictator in charge is not the solution and demand real progress. Or you can ignore them until they turn on you and blame you, the intelligentsia, for their problems.

TL;DR: Having a large mass of uneducated people never ends well for the educated.

Re:What about fixing the student loan risk?

[CaptainDork]

Boy, is this relevant!

Good job.

And, while we're at it, let's talk about drug testing all the farmers now that they are on welfare.

Re:What about fixing the student loan risk?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do the Hitler one next.

Look it up yourself if you think this is anything other than fact. Black kids grow up without a father over 80% of the time. This is entirely the fault of black men failing to be fathers.

STEM Warning [Re:STEM for at-risk only]

[Tablizer]

Now, none of those at-risk STEM program students work in STEM, and I do.

Doesn't mean they are not doing well in general. STEM is not the only game in town. STEM is often a dead-end career anyhow unless you are cut out for management. Ageism is rampant. Sure, STEM fields have done well for the last 15 years or so, but there is no guarantee that will continue. There were STEM slumps approximately around 1983, 1992, and 2002. One of them was the worse time ever in my life.

For example, if something sane replaced the stupid/illogical/bloated web "standards", half the dev positions would disappear. I remember how VB/Delphi/PowerBuilder sliced development staff in half from what C++ required. Those products abstracted away low-level grunt work from typical CRUD/GUI apps. The displaced C++'ers lamented on the loss of control over certain details, but bosses/owners accept loss of some control for 1/2 the tech staff cost. (The market was expanding fast enough that C++'ers found other jobs, just not internal generic CRUD.)

The web was not created with typical CRUD in mind and the adding it as an after-thought has made it ugly. A new standard may be CRUD-friendly. Sure, generic CRUD programming is not everything, but a big enough slice of the market to rock IT employment if it changes/shrinks.

Something equivalent could happen again, and BOOM! 2002 all over again. Or should I say, UnBoom. The only thing predictable about the future is that it's unpredictable.

Re:STEM Warning [Re:STEM for at-risk only]

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a shortage of skilled labor in the workforce that is not being addressed by... anyone. Schools to teach STEM are great but miss out on the fact we need more welders, electricians, plumbers, HVAC techs, mechanics, and other physical plant workers in the workforce. Post-high school costs to learn these trades are very steep, yet the barrier to entry for them mentally is not very high. A lot of youth today are told they should either get famous or be good at sports if they want to succeed without having a ton of money to spend on university OR are being told they need to study hard and get top scores to earn scholarships (that will then be in fierce short supply due t so many students applying for them) and then study fields that will soon have a glut of workers.

So... while its nice he is giving this opportunity to these underprivileged kids, I cannot help but think that its misplaced and unrealistic to do this instead of helping learn and explore actual trades that most of them have a real shot at entering and being highly successful in.

Re:STEM Warning [Re:STEM for at-risk only]

[Tablizer]

Indeed. That's partly why I believe we should tax the rich to help fund post-high-school education, including trade schools. That's a better solution for jobs than trying to bring back 1970-style factories by starting trade wars. Democrats sold that idea poorly, and that's why the out-of-touch Orange Guy won.

Re:STEM Warning [Re:STEM for at-risk only]

[phantomfive]

That reminds me that both CSS and C++ were written for that purpose, giving programmers employment. :/

Re: STEM Warning [Re:STEM for at-risk only]

[Tablizer]

There were no slumps in those years you mentioned that affected all the STEM professions simultaneously.

There does seem to be a correlation. For example, the "Glasnost" aerospace slump of the early 1990's did affect IT jobs to some degree, by my observation. (Although there was a general econ slump also that makes it difficult to really know.) There is enough cross-over such that a big slump in one STEM area does seem to push on others. Some aerospace engineers have IT experience and vice versa.

But you are right that my account is an over-simplification. I fully admit it. Thorough writing is often criticized (or ignored) for being long-winded such that people often oversimplify their description of the world for brevity. It's hard to make everyone happy, but the average person prefers short over full accuracy.

This issue does not significantly affect my main point that past or current patterns of demand are not sufficient to predict future patterns. The IT/coding "boom" of the last 15 or so years could be a long-term trend or a short term trend and we cannot really tell, only guess. Many career-related articles imply that "the future is STEM". That's not a reliable prediction.

Re:What about fixing the student loan risk?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do the Hitler one next.

Look it up yourself if you think this is anything other than fact. Black kids grow up without a father over 80% of the time. This is entirely the fault of black men failing to be fathers.

I'm sure you are 100% right and that it has absolutely nothing at all to do with the mothers and the broken system we live in that forces a father to prove the mother is a drugged up, mentally unfit criminal before letting him have his children(no child support given to him at all). I'm sure all the mothers are saints and that they don't EVER force the men out, looking for their next mark/baby daddy. None of these women are psychopaths, and NONE, I mean NONE of these women are violent toward these men. They are all just helpless, innocent victims, more than deserving of every hand out the system has to offer single mothers.

Re:What about fixing the student loan risk?

[The Evil Atheist]

You're the one doing virtue signalling.

Err....

[sunking2]

Don't they mean 'thanks to all the money give to Lebron James' charity? I believe in giving him plenty of credit, but the 'all thanks to' is a bit much.

Re:Err....

[Anonymous Coward]

No, because if the money had come from some non-athletic white guy or a corporation or government entity, it would have little chance of really impacting the target demographic. Many at-risk kids aren't going to be too interested in being mocked for going to a special nerd school.

But when one of the greatest sports heroes the kids know of has his name on it, there is little worry about being mocked for going there to get an education. The potential impact to change lives really is because of him, not just his money.

Re:What about fixing the student loan risk?

[CaptainDork]

OK, no Hitler.

Do the Bible one, OK?

Re:What about fixing the student loan risk?

[just another AC]

STEM in high school means nothing without the college degree to back it up and if LeBron isn't going to fund these kids THROUGH college its a fruitless endeavor.

citation please?
If you make a claim the burden is on you to provide the proof.

Some food for thought about why your claim might not be right:
Giving them a good high school STEM education might open doors to scholarships for college
A lot of the benefits in STEM curriculum apply to everyday life (critical thinking, numeracy, ...) - so will help them with everyday life cp not having these skills
Not every single job in STEM fields needs a degree - most of the interesting ones maybe, but this might open the door to say "data entry" jobs where previous opportunities might have only been menial/retail jobs.

Would it be more beneficial to have high school AND college - absolutely. But improving 10 lives a little or 1 life a lot is an ethics problem, and a choice that you can't dictate to others.

So your turn. Prove your claim that it is fruitless. Cite your data.

Re: What about fixing the student loan risk?

[PopeRatzo]

I support free castration for anyone who uses the word "free" to describe shit which they want to force me to pay for.

The rule of thumb is that anytime you see someone complaining about "paying for free stuff for other people", they're always someone who got a lot of free stuff growing up.

https://www.vanityfair.com/new...

"...a report from SB Nation"

[It's the tripnaut!]

I never would have imagined a post from SB Nation be featured on the front page of Slashdot.

Re:What about fixing the student loan risk?

[Opportunist]

Now add that the system is SO fucked up that even if mommy and daddy are happy together it's more sensible for them to claim they're not...

Re:What about fixing the student loan risk?

[tbuddy]

I say the same thing when people buy me dinner. If you aren't going to fund me all the way through dessert it is going to be a fruitless endeavor.

Re:What about fixing the student loan risk?

[pgmrdlm]

Wish I had mod points because your post was pretty much what I was thinking. If more people concentrated locally where they can make a difference, then nationally/globally the difference would be seen by everyone. Numb nuts original poster just isn't smart enough to know that.

Re:What about fixing the student loan risk?

[pgmrdlm]

how many people does your job/skill set feed in a world. US farmers feed the world. What the fuck have you done to contribute to a better living standard across the globe. Nothing, thats what I thought.

Re:What about fixing the student loan risk?

[coop247]

Any student from the school can attend Univ of Akron for free.

Re:What about fixing the student loan risk?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is disingenuous bullshit. I'd correct you but you obviously don't care about facts. I know, must be the fault of the Jews that have been denying your family any sort of success, intellectual, financial, or otherwise for the last 1000 years. I looked it up. ;)

Re:What about fixing the student loan risk?

[Green Mountain Bot]

STEM in high school means nothing without the college degree to back it up and if LeBron isn't going to fund these kids THROUGH college its a fruitless endeavor.

That's a fair point. Or, it would be if not for the fact that "If [students at the school] successfully complete the school program and graduate from high school, James will cover their full tuition at the local public college, University of Akron." But given that fact, it's actually a pretty piss poor point that seems more aimed at shitting on someone doing something good than at contributing to a solution.

Re:What about fixing the student loan risk?

[CaptainDork]

I was dragging OP by the fucking neck even further down the off-topic dead end street.

Hopefully, OP got the hint.

Apparently, you didn't.

I apologize for my shortcomings.

Re:What about fixing the student loan risk?

[HornWumpus]

Some civilized countries have free education. They also have strict admission and retention standards.

No nation has both free college and 'college for everyone'.

Basket weaving subjects are EASY to identify. Find the majors that are (complaining about/defaulting on) student loans the most, defund those.

Re:What about fixing the student loan risk?

[PopeRatzo]

Find the majors that are (complaining about/defaulting on) student loans the most, defund those.

So, you want to do away with law schools, medical schools, engineering schools and most of the sciences?

I'm on a college campus practically every single day and deal primarily with graduate students and post-grads. I know very well who is complaining about student loans and who isn't.

You and I are old, and sometimes forget that when we went to school, it was relatively cheap. I paid for an undergraduate education with summer jobs and grad school by driving a cab and playing in bar bands. To do that today, your summer job would have to be as a CEO or cabinet member of the Trump administration.

Don't use the world you dimly remember to judge the world you live in today.

Re:What about fixing the student loan risk?

[HornWumpus]

Just wrong. Completely backwards. Look at actual stats for loan delinquency, then get back to me.

Re:What about fixing the student loan risk?

[PopeRatzo]

Just wrong. Completely backwards. Look at actual stats for loan delinquency, then get back to me.

I really don't think you want me to look up those delinquency stats. You've made some assumptions without facts to back them up, old friend.

First the students most likely to be in default are the ones who borrowed the least

https://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/0...

Second, the states where there are the highest rates of student indebtedness are South Dakota and West Virginia. Those sound like places where a lot of people major in gender studies? Oh, and California has the third lowest student indebtedness score.

https://wallethub.com/edu/best...

Also, the states with the highest rates of student default are (in order) Mississippi, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Nevada. Do those sound like places where students are clamoring to get basket-weaving degrees? And, the kicker is that the state with the lowest rate of student loan delinquency? If you guessed "Massachusetts" (and I know you didn't) then you would be right.

HornWumpus, you know, sometimes the thing that feels so much like it should be real...just isn't.

Re:Early STEM

[Green Mountain Bot]

I'm guessing you meant to respond to someone else, as I didn't assert that STEM is useless - that would be idiotic. Also, there already is an I Promise Elementary School, so they recognize the benefit of starting earlier.

Re:What about fixing the student loan risk?

[sydbarrett74]

This is entirely the fault of black men failing to be fathers.

Maybe if minorities weren't disproportionately incarcerated for low-level offences and given the max sentence they'd have the opportunity to be fathers. Kinda hard to be a parent from behind bars.