Can Lebron's I Promise School fix what public schools didn't?

Too often, low-income, black and Latino students end up in schools with crumbling walls, old textbooks and fewer resources, according to a report by the U.S.Commission on Civil Rights

Policymakers have struggled to come up with ideas that can help ensure that low-income children break out of the poverty cycle. Last week LeBron James, the Los Angeles Lakers basketball player, opened the I Promise School for at-risk children in his hometown Akron, Ohio as a way to combat inequities facing children of color.

Does celebrity sponsorship of schools act as a springboard to lift students out of poverty? Or do projects like this divert more students and resources away from other neighborhood schools?

Raymond C. Pierce, president and CEO of the Southern Education Foundation, and Abdul Wright, educator at Best Academy in North Minneapolis, spoke with MPR News host Kerri Miller about what it takes to support low-income students in school.