A World of Experience Delivering Localized Solutions for Equitable Education

Every school has unique conditions and needs, and at McREL we prioritize context and collaboration when working with our school and district clients. We don’t deliver one-size-fits-all, off-the-shelf, prescribed programs. Before proposing any solutions or services, we first focus on learning about you and your school community: your strengths and traditions, your values and goals, your culture, and your areas of concern. We then tailor our services to fit your specific needs, building contextualized solutions on a solid foundation of evidence-based best practices, forward-thinking concepts, an equity lens, and a systems approach to continuous improvement.

Here’s How We Help Our Partners Get There

• Identify and Build on Existing Bright Spots.  McREL’s expert educators and researchers support schools, districts, and regional education agencies to study, uncover, and address the root causes of inequities and underachievement. But we don’t stop there. We also strongly believe in taking a “bright spots” approach, honoring local culture and contexts and getting to know what’s already going well within a school or system that can be shared and scaled up for bigger impacts on more students.

• Focus on What Matters Most.  Our extensive research on successful school improvement has revealed five key areas that schools must get right in order to deliver exceptional experiences and opportunities for all students. We help our partners gauge where they currently are within each area, what they can leverage for maximum impact on student success, and where to apply additional resources and capacity-building efforts to support long-term, sustainable improvement.

• Lead for Instruction and Equity.  McREL assists current and aspiring school leaders to gain and use research-based leadership knowledge, skills, actions, and tools that make the biggest impact on teacher efficacy and student learning outcomes. We also help districts create leadership pipeline systems to support the identification and development of future leaders from within their own educator ranks, leaders who will have the contextual knowledge of their communities, families, and students needed to address inequities.

• Build a Purposeful Community United in a Vision for What Can Be.  Successful, equitable schools have something in common: Their teachers, support staff, families, and community stakeholders share a common understanding of where the school is now, what its vision for the future is, and how it’s going to get there. McREL helps school teams learn how to strengthen collective efficacy, build demand for positive changes, and rally together to support improvement for the long term.