Promises, promises: LeBron James' school struggles in Akron

Akron's I Promise School opened five years ago with high hopes and lots of extra funding from basketball star LeBron James' foundation. The district-run school is now one of the lowest-scoring schools in Ohio, reports 3News. Of the first cohort, now eighth graders, none has tested as proficient in math since third grade.

I Promise recruits "at risk" third-graders who test below the 30th percentile. The extra funding pays for smaller classes, a longer school day and a variety of support services for students' families, a majority of whom are low-income and black.

The school features a "STEM curriculum with a 'We Are Family' philosophy . . . that creates a culture conducive to social-emotional learning." Teaching is "trauma-informed."

The school, now with students in third through eighth grade, only takes kids who've gotten off to a bad start. That's a very tough challenge.

But proficiency scores don't improve: 6.6 percent are proficiency in English language arts in third grade and remain below 10 percent. In math, 11.5 percent are proficient in third grade; that drops to 1 percent by fifth grade. That's bad, even for Akron, which has a lot of low-scoring schools.

Do I Promise's struggles show the community school model doesn't work? Or that creating an effective school for high-need students has to focus on teaching and curriculum? (There's no point saying curriculum is STEM focused if 90+ percent of students are weak in math.)

Of course, the pandemic disrupted learning for I Promise, which saw test scores fall. But they fell this year too.

A new principal has taken over this year: School started yesterday.