Board of Directors

Ellen Guiney
Guiney is executive director of the Boston Plan for Excellence (BPE), a local education fund started in 1984 to support the city’s public schools. In its early years, the plan provided mini-grants to teachers and scholarships to high school graduates until the plan’s trustees approved a reorganization plan in 1995. Today, the plan’s mission is “to be a catalyst and support to the Boston Public Schools in transforming instruction to improve the performance of every student.” The Boston Plan for Excellence plays two critical roles with the Boston schools: it tests new ideas that hold the promise of accelerating reform across the district and challenges and supports the school district to build the practice and policy infrastructure that is essential to support implementation. To support its work, the Boston Plan for Excellence receives major grants from nationally recognized foundations (the Annenberg and William and Flora Hewlett Foundations, and the Carnegie Corporation and Boston area foundations and corporations.

Prior to her work at the BPE, Guiney was chief education advisor to the U.S. Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee, and one of the Democratic staff leaders on Goals 2000/ESEA Reauthorization. She also has served as education advisor to the mayor of Boston during the transition to an appointed school board, and is a former high school English teacher. She serves on the boards and advisory boards of numerous education reform organizations and has been a member of PEN’s policy committee since 1996.

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