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How LeBron James' new public school is the first of its kind

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Re: How LeBron James' new public school is the first of its kind

#321
post #212
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Others fall asleep immediately at school since they live with 5+ siblings and there are literally no available beds at home. I am not trying to blame the parents in all the cases either At some point, though, personal responsibility has to come into play. Having 5+ children when you have no resources... this is the true elephant in the room. It seems talking about it gets labels thrown around. I guess it's a conversa…

I don't see how this is an elephant in the room or a conversation we can't have right now. Lets. What, besides providing extra resources to underpriveleged children so they are not punished for their parents mistakes, can be done? Are you suggesting we make their parents "pay" somehow? Or a program to prevent the parents from having 5+ kids when they don't have the resources?

> Or a program to prevent the parents from having 5+ kids when they don't have the resources?

Out of curiosity, what have the sociologists concluded from China’s one-child policy?

Re: How LeBron James' new public school is the first of its kind

#322

I wish Jeff Bezos can get his head out of his rocket and do something like this with his 100s of billions.

I wish we would just take away 149 billion or so.

Neither are going to happen. He might toss around a bit of money to try and buy a better reputation, but he's still the worlds richest man by standing on the backs of the very people who's kids need better education.

Re: How LeBron James' new public school is the first of its kind

#323
post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have children? The flippant way you say that we should take the children away from their families makes me think not.

Not all parents should be allowed to raise their children...

Are you sure you're not actually saying "poor parents shouldn't be allowed to raise their children"?

Re: How LeBron James' new public school is the first of its kind

#324
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t imagine most working adults would be willing to work starting so early. Why do we force children who need even more sleep to do so?

School starts are staggered so the district can use fewer buses (at least they are around here). Middle school at 7:55, High school at 8:35, Elementary at 9:20.

Here it's the opposite. Elementary starts earlier than middle school. I actually prefer this because our middle school age kid is fine to get out to the bus on her own. The elementary school twins not as much. I can leave for my train earlier this way.

Re: How LeBron James' new public school is the first of its kind

#325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Longer school days, 3 meals, and a longer school year helps students stay focused. The middle one is absolutely true, the other two I really doubt e.g. in Finland or Germany, schoolday starts around 9AM and ends around 2PM, yielding 3h30 to 4h studies a day accounting for breaks, 5 days/week, with little homework (maybe 5h/week total). Afternoon is usually dedicated to clubs.

The longer school day and it's structure are, per the article, designed to provide compensation for at-home support that is deficient in the target population; done right—e.g., so it doesn't just look like normal classroom time stretched longer—this may well be the best available mitigation for the social problem it is addressing.

I was one of the lucky kids who went to a very well funded school district because my parents managed to snag one of the, like, 15 housing units within it that didn't cost a million dollars a year to live in.

They had a really good after-school program for me and the other 30 or so kids whose parents had to work long hours with no flexibility. We were supervised by an adult to make sure we didn't kill each other but it was mostly about having free-time to do homework, read books, and play pick-up soccer or whatever.

Edit: To be honest, it's probably a better environment that we would have gotten at home, even with caring, attentive parents. We had access to the whole school library and our adult supervision actually knew our curricula so they could help us with the homework better than our parents could. Home computers weren't really a thing yet, so being able to use the shelf of encyclopedias was huge.

Re: How LeBron James' new public school is the first of its kind

#326

I wish Jeff Bezos can get his head out of his rocket and do something like this with his 100s of billions.

A friend of mine was ranting about how evil Bezos and Musk are. I generally don’t see those two as the worst of the worst, so I spent some time listening to her thoughts. Her basic assertion was that the simple accumulation of that much wealth is itself evil. They could do many things like build schools and since they choose not to they are evil. I mentioned to her that they can’t sell their stock without ceding cont…

Depends on how you define worst of the worst.

There aren't that many billionaires. So are you saying they aren't the worst of the billionaire class? That's really the only way I can see the phrase working.

> I mentioned to her that they can’t sell their stock without ceding control

What about changing voting schemes?

> Does it say something about someone’s heart if they aren’t building schools and hospitals the moment they obtain enough wealth to do so comfortably?

I think it says something about their heart if they are able to get that wealthy, with rare exceptions.

Re: How LeBron James' new public school is the first of its kind

#327
post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have children? The flippant way you say that we should take the children away from their families makes me think not.

Not all parents should be allowed to raise their children...

What are your criteria?

Re: How LeBron James' new public school is the first of its kind

#328
post #267

From what I read it seems he's focusing on the pain points or barriers to learning from the perspective of the underprivileged from whence LeBron came. If you have someone that lived this giving him deep insight to the real issues AND he's a good person AND he has power to change, that is a fabulous formula for success. I hope this works out. Too many times you have people meaning well that have not actually experien…

I'm not convinced this 'diversity of thought' (aka direct domain expertise) is actually as useful as people love to claim these days. It's an extremely popular narrative that gets pushed with very little questioning or measuring of its utility. a) is it really accurate that a smart person can't legitimately learn and be sensitive to life experiences from others or b) why can't they hire people to advise them while st…

>>> Everyone is acting like this project is already a success when it has just launched...Id wait a couple years before calling LeBron a hero.

Although I agree with your general point, I don't see the problem with praising people that is trying hard at changing the lives of others for the better.

Re: How LeBron James' new public school is the first of its kind

#329
post #212
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Others fall asleep immediately at school since they live with 5+ siblings and there are literally no available beds at home. I am not trying to blame the parents in all the cases either At some point, though, personal responsibility has to come into play. Having 5+ children when you have no resources... this is the true elephant in the room. It seems talking about it gets labels thrown around. I guess it's a conversa…

I don't see how this is an elephant in the room or a conversation we can't have right now. Lets. What, besides providing extra resources to underpriveleged children so they are not punished for their parents mistakes, can be done? Are you suggesting we make their parents "pay" somehow? Or a program to prevent the parents from having 5+ kids when they don't have the resources?

What, besides providing extra resources to underpriveleged children so they are not punished for their parents mistakes, can be done?

Unintended consequences. I believe it is generally accepted that the policies in the 70's led to the destruction (dismantling?) of the urban/poor family (yes, predominately African American).

Also, we've seen that this issue has significantly fueled the rise of people like our current POTUS.

It's a hard problem. I don't know what the solution is.

Re: How LeBron James' new public school is the first of its kind

#330
post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how this is an elephant in the room or a conversation we can't have right now. Lets. What, besides providing extra resources to underpriveleged children so they are not punished for their parents mistakes, can be done? Are you suggesting we make their parents "pay" somehow? Or a program to prevent the parents from having 5+ kids when they don't have the resources?

better sex education, better access to contraceptives, better access to abortion. You don't punish the problem away, you help people avoid it themselves.

I think this is a huge part of it. Even something as simple as free high-quality condoms or emergency contraception (morning-after) can make a huge difference when money is tight.

Even better would be free birth-control medication or IUD's, as these put the birth control in the hands of women, while condoms especially might not be used in the face of social pressure.

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