MSHR seeks to improve the state of human rights and civil society in Russia through civic education.
The school provides professional training courses for secondary school teachers and university professors to help them learn how to "teach democracy" and promote civic culture in the classroom.
 Since the school''s creation in 1994, more than 7,000 teachers have attended these courses. Additionally, staff from MSHR consult with school administrators to devise curricula for civics courses and have published several textbooks and educational films on themes of human rights and government.
The school''s board of directors includes several prominent figures from the Soviet dissident movement, such as Larisa Bogoraz and Ludmila Alexeeva.
In December 1997, it was a co-organizer (with UNESCO and the Federation Ministry of Education) of the Seventh Annual Conference on Human Rights Education, where participants discussed problems confronting education reform in Russia and strategies for continued teacher training.