Relationships & Resources
Success in urban underperforming, public schools comes down to two over-arching principles or themes: Relationships and Resources.
When Relationships and Resources are implemented in urban underperforming public schools, they will rival high performers all over the country.
At UE101, we believe that success in urban, public schools comes down to two over- arching principles or themes: Relationships and Resources. We further believe that we will not realize sustained growth in underperforming schools until the two principles are simultaneously established. Then, and only then, will urban underperforming schools rival high performers all over the country.
Relationships and Resources at a Glance
What’s the difference between relationships and resources?
Currently the overwhelming majority of the focus is on the resource side of the model. We tend to think that money and/or using money to acquire books and materials, the latest pedagogical strategies, and certificated or “quality” teachers is the answer. Programs inevitably focuses primarily on the best instructional practices that money can buy, to the detriment of the best relationships that people can build.
This thinking just doesn’t work. Most of the policy makers come from environments where the relationship component is a natural part of the communal landscape. And we structure the politics and programming of urban education around that experience and frame of reference, not the reality of the situation. This leaves us practically blind to the fact that relationship formation precedes academic acquisition.
This exposes and academic breach between high performing schools and urban underperforming schools.
The key to the UE101 program is viewing the school as more than an organism of academic achievement. Using the Maslow Model, the school is viewed as a needs-based environment. At UE101, we recognize that a school’s level of needs should be divided into climate- and culture-oriented categories that must be developed and instituted concurrently. When we can build a climate of safety we can build a culture of achievement.
