Highlander Institute partners with communities to imagine and create more equitable, relevant, and effective schools.
We support educators through
Inclusive Change
We support education leaders to design, convene, and facilitate school improvement teams that elevate family, student, and teacher voice in redesign efforts. We craft a shared vision, set goals, and develop action plans to improve both social-emotional and academic outcomes for all learners, particularly for those who are currently struggling.
Instructional Equity
We leverage our research-based instructional framework to help teachers increase relevance and engagement. Our professional learning opportunities improve persistence, independence, and success within challenging curricula, creating joyful learning experiences that honor and celebrate all student identities.
Liberatory Data
We center student experiences as a key measure of instructional efficacy. Our innovative data tools quantify student perceptions around belonging, academic confidence, cognitive skills, and engagement. We study and compare data from various student populations, mobilizing stakeholders to take action to close gaps and replicate best practices.
Our approach leverages transformative frameworks to drive instructional equity
Our Pedagogical Framework
Implemented through an equity lens, our Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Pedagogy (CRSP) framework drives academic improvement. Persistent achievement gaps are the result of deficient systems, not deficient students. Our instructional approach begins with awareness, encouraging teachers and leaders to recognize how current systems undermine student confidence and under-develop cognitive processing skills. Our progression of high-value teacher moves is aligned with student data and paves the way for improving student engagement, elevating higher order thinking skills, and nurturing self-directed learners -- resulting in enhanced achievement and empowered students.
Our Change Management Model
Our Inclusive Change Process leverages our Pathway to Personalization framework as a guide for scaling best practices across a school or district. In order to build momentum in any redesign effort, teachers, students, and other community stakeholders must unite as agents of change. Our framework serves as a roadmap for determining how to engage stakeholders, how to build momentum, how to align and communicate efforts, and how to measure progress along the way.
We are proudly supported by
