LeBoron Jame sis dealing with a family crisis, after his son Bronny had an unexpected cardiac arrest during basketball practice. But he has another problem on his hands.
LeBron’s I Promise Academy, which offers money, fancy uniforms, and a state of the art gym to its students – isn’t providing a proper education, Media Take Out has learned.
For the past three years, according to a new report, every 8th grade student at the school has failed the state math exam. And it gets worse.
Black students attending the school score within the bottom 5% of the entire city, Media Take Out has learned.
The Akron School District bears more than half of the costs. I Promise costs about $8 million a year to run out of the district’s regular budget, covered mostly by shifting students, teachers, and money from other schools.
Akron Public Schools board member Valerie McKitrick brought up this troubling fact at a recent community meeting, saying, “Not one? In three years?”
“It is discouraging,” responded Keith Liechty-Clifford, the district’s director of school improvement.
Five years into the I Promise School, a public school that operates in partnership with the LeBron James Family Foundation, Akron school board members are beginning to wonder whether I Promise is living up to its academic promise.
The goal of the school is to serve as an intervention for the district’s lowest-performing students starting at an early age. It is a rare — if not unprecedented — model in education nationwide.
The state has also issued its first concern about the school: Two of I Promise’s biggest subgroups of students, Black students and those with disabilities, are now testing in the bottom 5% in the state, landing the school on the Ohio Department of Education’s list of those requiring targeted intervention.
