LeBron James school that was considered an experiment is showing promise
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Re: LeBron James school that was considered an experiment is showing promise
#2Related HN thread from 8 months ago (602 upvotes/463 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17661995
Re: LeBron James school that was considered an experiment is showing promise
#3Related HN thread from 8 months ago (602 upvotes/463 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17661995
Sure, but it's nice to see the premise borne out by the early data:
The students’ scores reflect their performance on the Measures of Academic Progress assessment, a nationally recognized test administered by NWEA, an evaluation association. In reading, where both classes had scored in the lowest, or first, percentile, third graders moved to the ninth percentile, and fourth graders to the 16th. In math, third graders jumped from the lowest percentile to the 18th, while fourth graders moved from the second percentile to the 30th.
The 90 percent of I Promise students who met their goals exceeded the 70 percent of students districtwide, and scored in the 99th growth percentile of the evaluation association’s school norms, which the district said showed that students’ test scores increased at a higher rate than 99 out of 100 schools nationally.
Re: LeBron James school that was considered an experiment is showing promise
#4This illustrates that parents are the key component in childhood education. A worse than average teacher who teaches kids with involved parents will outperform the best teacher with uninvolved parents.
In addition, LeBron James has a huge amount of credibility built up with the students. I would guess that many of the students feel some sort of connection to him, and do not want to disappoint him.
Re: LeBron James school that was considered an experiment is showing promise
#5This illustrates that parents are the key component in childhood education. A worse than average teacher who teaches kids with involved parents will outperform the best teacher with uninvolved parents. In addition, LeBron James has a huge amount of credibility built up with the students. I would guess that many of the students feel some sort of connection to him, and do not want to disappoint him.
Indeed, schooling includes the influence of the parents, not pushing for helicopter parents, but engaged and supportive.
Re: LeBron James school that was considered an experiment is showing promise
#6I didn’t see anything about this in the article, so I ask here in the hopes that someone more knowledgeable can comment: how are they controlling for selection bias? Is there any way to select into or out of this school, or is it purely the standard districting system? Even if it’s the latter in many other places it’s still possible to move into the area. Do we know to what extent that has been happening?
Edit: Oops, I was tricked by an advert. The article continued to say that the students were admitted by lottery. The only question I’m immediately left with then is whether they had to enter the lottery, or whether it was automatic? And was their admission contingent on their parents’ willingness to participate in these extra classes?
https://fredrikdeboer.com/2017/03/29/why-selection-bias-is-t...
Re: LeBron James school that was considered an experiment is showing promise
#7I didn’t see anything about this in the article, so I ask here in the hopes that someone more knowledgeable can comment: how are they controlling for selection bias? Is there any way to select into or out of this school, or is it purely the standard districting system? Even if it’s the latter in many other places it’s still possible to move into the area. Do we know to what extent that has been happening? Edit: Oops,…
From the article:
"I Promise students were among those identified by the district as performing in the 10th to 25th percentile on their second-grade assessments. They were then admitted through a lottery."
Re: LeBron James school that was considered an experiment is showing promise
#8Good, his ball team isn't. ;-)
Re: LeBron James school that was considered an experiment is showing promise
#9This illustrates that parents are the key component in childhood education. A worse than average teacher who teaches kids with involved parents will outperform the best teacher with uninvolved parents. In addition, LeBron James has a huge amount of credibility built up with the students. I would guess that many of the students feel some sort of connection to him, and do not want to disappoint him.
I doubt there was ever much debate that parents are the single most important factor for children.
It’s just that, from a policy perspective, it is extremely hard to actually have any impact on that behavior. It’s basically social work, a concept for which there is essentially no money at scale in the US.
Re: LeBron James school that was considered an experiment is showing promise
#10This illustrates that parents are the key component in childhood education. A worse than average teacher who teaches kids with involved parents will outperform the best teacher with uninvolved parents. In addition, LeBron James has a huge amount of credibility built up with the students. I would guess that many of the students feel some sort of connection to him, and do not want to disappoint him.
Great point