Finland has a drastically lower poverty rate, lower income inequality [1] and lower violent crime rate than the United States [2].

This fact, combined with Finland's well-known social safety nets leads to the obvious conclusion that you would be hard pressed to find living conditions like those in the slums of Akron/Cleveland in Finland.

[1]https://data.oecd.org/finland.htm#profile-government [2]http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Finland/Uni...

==This fact, combined with Finland's well-known social safety nets leads to the obvious conclusion that you would be hard pressed to find living conditions like those in the slums of Akron/Cleveland in Finland.==

Isn't it possible that Finland's well-known social safety net is at least partially responsible for the lower poverty, income inequality and violent crime rates?

It's absolutely the case, no question; but the problem here is that a school model that works in that scenario is unlikely to work in the current American scenario. It's like writing programs for high-level APIs (that will take care of memory, sorting and so on) versus writing programs against the POSIX interface (where you have to basically do everything yourself).

Yes, and I absolutely agree with the the other reply that such a model would be completely ineffective in the type of neighborhoods LeBron's school is targeting. I hope this model is successful because I think it could greatly benefit under-served communities.