LeBron’s ‘I Promise School’ Offers a Few Important
Lessons in Education Reform
Last week, President Trump scoffed—albeit passive aggressively—at basketball icon LeBron James’ intelligence in
a tweet, stating, “Lebron James was just interviewed by the dumbest man on television, Don Lemon,” Mr. Trump
wrote, “He made Lebron look smart, which isn’t easy to do. I like Mike!” But it looks like LeBron is the one taking
Trump to school.
In the same week, LeBron announced the opening of his I Promise School. It is open to 240 low-income, at-risk
third- and fourth-grade students in his hometown of Akron, in northeast Ohio. Each year, the school will add
grades, expanding to first through eighth grades by 2022.
Outstream Video
I Promise is a public-private partnership between the Akron School District and the LeBron James Family
Foundation, a unique model that exemplifies LeBron’s exceptional abilities to see the bigger picture in the role
education plays in community development.
The new school is open for more days than the traditional school year, provides parents with job placement services,
has a food bank on site, gives each kid a free bicycle and helmet, guarantees college tuition for every student who
graduates and offers social and emotional support and other wrap-around services, something researchers and
practitioners recognize as important. The school accounts for and addresses the structural discrimination that
has long hurt black families - and black school districts. In a way, by connecting social assistances to the school, I
Promise is providing wraparound services for the entire district.
Amplifying the school’s offerings so far beyond the curriculum certainly isn’t conventional, but LeBron is deliberately
stepping out-of-bounds, and kudos to him for that.
“Everything these kids are going through - the drugs, the violence, the guns, everything they’re going through as
kids, I know,” said LeBron, the son of a single parent, during his remarks at the school opening. “For me to be in
the position where I have the resources, the finance, the people, the structure and the city around me - why not?”
Andre Perry
Dr. Andre Perry, a contributing writer, is a David M. Rubenstein Fellow
at The Brookings Institution. His research focuses on race and structural
inequality, community engagement and education.
Program Success 3 August 2018