Our Mission
There are 75,400 schoolchildren in Boston. More than 56,000 attend the Boston Public Schools. Their future—and the city’s—depends on how well we educate every child in every school.
For 25 years, the Boston Plan for Excellence (BPE) has worked toward one goal—excellence in every classroom, in every school, for every student in the Boston Public Schools. Our mission is to make sure every child in Boston graduates prepared to succeed in college and life. We measure our success by student outcomes, using data to keep our focus on what matters most: student learning. We won’t be satisfied until every student achieves at high levels.
ACTING ON DATA TO INCREASE LEARNING
Boston’s data-driven inquiry approach does what isolated school improvement initiatives have not: It helps teachers and school leaders respond to student performance data in a systematic way, investing energy were it has the greatest impact.
Through structured inquiry cycles, school teams use student data to uncover learning gaps, design improvements, and identify their own professional learning needs.
Getting Students On Track for Success
BPE designed an early warning tool—the Composite Learning Index (CLI)—that helps schools track individual students’ progress toward graduation. The CLI draws on research about dropout prevention and successful efforts to raise urban students’ graduation rates.
School teams use highly predictive indicators to identify students who are unlikely to graduate. They then design changes to instruction and other supports that get students on track for success.




