Pierce vs William H Lincoln

Pierce and William H Lincoln sit 0.6 miles apart in Brookline, Massachusetts, yet their overall ratings tell meaningfully different stories. William H Lincoln earns a 9.3 out of 10 versus Pierce's 8.9 out of 10 — a gap that translates into a significant state-rank difference: William H Lincoln ranks #26 of 1,791 Massachusetts schools, while Pierce ranks #90 of 1,791. Both are excellent by any statewide measure, but William H Lincoln's edge is not marginal.

On raw academic performance, the schools are nearly identical: Pierce scores 9.6 out of 10 versus William H Lincoln's 9.5 out of 10 — a difference too small to drive a decision. Where they diverge is in growth. William H Lincoln's growth score of 9.2 out of 10 outpaces Pierce's 8.5 out of 10 by 0.7 points, meaning students at William H Lincoln are advancing faster relative to where they started, regardless of their baseline. For families who care about trajectory — not just absolute attainment — that seven-tenths gap is the most actionable number in this comparison.

Pierce enrolls 668 students versus William H Lincoln's 474, making Pierce roughly 40 percent larger. That size difference compounds in the classroom: Pierce's student-teacher ratio is 13.4 to 1, while William H Lincoln's is 10.8 to 1. A child at William H Lincoln is in a setting with nearly three fewer students per teacher on average — a structural advantage that affects individual attention across every subject and grade level. Both schools serve the same grade span, kindergarten through eighth grade, so neither has an advantage in continuity or transitions.

Both schools follow the same KG–08 structure, meaning families commit to a single building through middle school. That long runway makes the growth-score gap — and the staffing ratio — more consequential than they would be at a pure elementary school, since the compounding effect of faster growth and smaller classes plays out over nine years rather than five or six.