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Seth Mcfall

Interesting, who was the email from?

I guess I was not chosen for the zips fan council. I just received this email. I honestly didn’t think there would be a formal process to join, I thought it was just going to be a bunch of fans getting together to voice their opinion. Maybe this group will actually have some swing to decisions then. Thank you for your support of the Zips and interest in joining the Zips Fan Council! While it’s been a hectic time of year with basketball season in full-swing, I wanted to send out a quick update regarding where our department is currently at with creating the Zips Fan Council. We had overwhelming interest in being a part of this council, with just under 100 applicants from across the state of Ohio and beyond. Our goal for this council is to build a group that spans across as many different demographics as possible, and as such we’ve selected limited numbers of individuals across a wide variety of graduation years and backgrounds to accomplish this goal. We are in the final stages of scheduling interviews with applicants and hope to have our council members finalized in the coming weeks, with our first meeting late in the spring. If you were not chosen to move forward in the process, please know that it was based on limited availability and Akron Athletics appreciates and values your support. As this will be a group that ebbs and flows based on availability, we would love to consider you for the group in the future even if you are not ultimately selected in this first iteration.

As a homeschooling parent, I am fully aware of the failures of the current education system. I'm not saying standardized tests are the end all be all. However, is there any proof that iPromise is successful? Are kids actually contributing to their community? Are they truly staying off the streets? Are they actually graduating high school and going to college? Where is there any proof? The only public data we have is that 2 out of 75 7th graders passed a proficiency test. That's 4 years of education at that school leading to 2.67% of the grade being proficient. A public testimony on this board stated that the iPromise part of UA sits empty. Sorry for another post about this @kreed5120 but I also believe it ties into the topic of this thread. UA is an urban campus, meaning the Akron community has a major influence on the university itself. If the city of Akron as a whole improves, so should the future of UA. Not to mention we're talking about guaranteed scholarships for Akron.

https://www.torontofc.ca/news/richie-laryea-named-to-team-of-the-matchday-3-bench

Three guys recalled on the same day? Did they have some injuries happen?

I can agree with that. Just wanted to share perspective from someone who has a ton of experience working with the same type of kids the I Promise school has.

If you take the lowest performing kids from any school district and put them in a separate school, I promise you'll see the same results. They are starting way behind in ability, especially reading level, which is the cornerstone of success in education. All of them. Some of the kids arrive there 2-3 grade levels behind. So even though a large percentage of their scores might improve over the course of the year, they still "fail" according to the standardized tests. A 5th grader comes to them at a 3rd grade reading level, improves to a 4th grade reading level, but still fails the test because they're still behind. It is why nobody should look at standardized test results as the primary indicator for school success. It's much more complex than that, and it's why the large majority of educators dislike the current standardized test system. If people can't see how graduating kids and sending kids to college that would probably end up on the streets otherwise if it wasn't for the school isn't helping the community, I'm not sure what to tell them.

IMO 2-3 guys will transfer due to lack of playing time or fit. I would expect 3-4 portal additions. Add in Young, Eric and MMK that bring us to 6-7. From there that leaves opportunities for 2-3 additional players to earn solid, consistent minutes. I'm not as knowledgeable on who we have redshirting or true freshman coming in, but I'm sure we'll have some competition to fill out those roles.

Maybe next year for MJ

I've thought of that team, too. They brought in 5 portal players the next year - Gray, Okonkwo, Hardman, Wilson, and Harris. Unless some players leave, I believe we only have two open spots right now.

I felt the same way with the team Freeman's senior year. We went out that offseason and reloaded. Made it right back into the tournament the following year.

Can this conversation get moved elsewhere? While it's an educated and civil conservation, it's completely unrelated to Akron athletics.

Exactly, https://reportcard.education.ohio.gov

If zero eighth graders pass the math test, that’s not a success story. You can debate standardized tests, but a 0% pass rate shows something is seriously wrong. Akron city kids deserve better results than 100% failure. Edit: Typo

Whole interview starts at about 1:15

I'm all for helping these kids achieve lives they otherwise wouldn't have; if that requires some grace when it comes to grades/testing while improvement is shown in other areas of their lives/education, so be it. However, it is like pulling teeth to get any transparent data on the overall success of the school. Are these kids experiencing success in high school? What percentage are actually utilizing the scholarships? I know it's still relatively early, but the lack of transparency leads me to believe it's not as successful as they would like the public to believe. "Nothing is given; everything is earned," seems to be a complete contradiction to the model. Tying this back to UA - it doesn't seem like this is helping the university whatsoever. You're right - I don't. However, that's independent of my belief that the iPromise model doesn't actually translate to success in the community and that's my ultimate problem with the school. I don't care who created the school - stealing from taxpayers and potentially causing further harm to our youth isn't something I support. Some food for thought: 20-40% is the proficiency in reading and math for Akron Public Schools (the failures of our public education system are an entirely different discussion). 6-10% is the estimated proficiency for the iPromise school. The iPromise school is costing taxpayers $8M per year. How is that helping the community?

TOS to Detroit

Billionaire plus another $300M. Like all the other billionaires, he needs to be doing more philanthropy.

Spot on. I work in education. 10 years working in schools with at-risk students. Pass/fail on standardized tests, especially with a 100% at-risk population, never tells the story - growth does. When you help an at-risk student graduate, you're literally changing the outcome of their life, but also the lives of future generations in that family. The work they're doing - investing in the kids, in the families, the wraparound services - is incredible.

Zips are favored by 13.5 against Buffalo with an O/U of 162.5. Miami is favored by 7.5 over UMass, and for some reason the other two games are not listed yet.

This feels like a pretty big MAC Tournament for us. We're about to lose 5/8 of our primary rotation and 73% of our scoring. The transfer portal can change things quickly, but right now we are slated to be young and inexperienced next season. A tournament win would go a long way toward keeping our best underclassmen and drawing some additional talent in the portal.

Right. I don't see how he's to blame for kids' math test results. Also, no one is taking into account how ridiculous standardized tests are. These kids are from disadvantaged backgrounds, so they likely are behind already before starting at the iPromise school. Just because they don't pass the standardized test doesn't mean the school isn't helping to improve their education. Not all "failure" on tests is the same.