Who We Are
Boston is ready for a revolution, ready to fire an education shot heard round the world, and ready to move from incremental to positively disruptive exponential change. That’s the goal of the Boston Opportunity Agenda and in collaboration with all of you, we can make that goal a reality.
Rev. Dr. Ray A. Hammond, Founding Chair, Boston Opportunity Agenda
The Boston Opportunity Agenda is a public/ private partnership that works to increase dramatically the pace and scale of change in education for all children in Boston, with a focus on students who experience the least access to successful pathways.
Our vision:
Our vision is of a Boston in which all children and young people are prepared to succeed in college, career and life.
We fervently believe that by combining our resources, expertise and influence around a single agenda, we will have a greater impact on Boston’s cradle-to-career educational pipeline.
Our Mission
The Boston Opportunity Agenda is a public/private partnership that works urgently and strategically to transform the Boston education landscape from cradle to career. Our focus is on removing the systemic barriers that create unacceptable outcomes and lack of opportunity for historically oppressed and economically disadvantaged populations and creating a just, equitable education system.
While Boston has many exciting programs and organizations that focus on providing opportunities for individuals, the Boston Opportunity Agenda is a long-term partnership focused on achieving systemic change that will ultimately affect all Boston residents.
The partnership is entering its eighth year and is governed by the CEOs of each member organization. Together they identify strategic issues facing our education pipeline in whole or in part, formulate the Boston Opportunity Agenda priorities and strategies, and provide a call to action for community stakeholders.
Our Shared Values
We believe that every child deserves equitable access to excellent educational opportunities. We hold ourselves accountable to creating a just. equitable education system. In doing our work, the Opportunity Agenda is strengthened by our shared values at the CEO table and across our networks.
Pursue Equity: We focus our efforts on young children, students and families traditionally marginalized due to race, income or immigration status who experience visible and invisible barriers to high quality services and therefore experience inequitable outcomes;
Adopt Anti-Racist Policy: We work to ensure that programs, services, and supports are respectful of and responsive to the language and culture of the population being engaged and are rooted in anti-racist practice and policies.
Strengthen Community: We build diverse coalitions and partnerships across sectors while elevating the voice and leadership of community members most directly impacted by the challenges we seek to address.
Continuously Learn: We actively seek new perspectives and information as well as evaluate our work to ensure that we are continuously learning and growing across our networks and member organizations.
Act with Humility: We acknowledge the limitations of our perspectives and approach our work with humility. We actively seek diverse perspectives and historical contexts.
Achieve Impact: We pursue ambitious, meaningful changes that lead to access, opportunity and quality. We hold ourselves to making data-informed decisions and are focused on long-term success.