“Pilot Schools represent the best that public education has to offer in Boston,” stated a Boston Globe lead editorial.(“Snuffing pilot schools.”  April 27, 2005: Boston Globe lead editorial.) Pilot Schools are at the forefront of school reform, and represent a unique model of innovation within a school district.  According to one Pilot School principal, “What every principal or headmaster should have are the kind of conditions Pilots have.  That’s everything from size and scale to hiring their own staff to instructional flexibility to governance, the works.”(O’Reilly, F.; Johnson, C; Stewart, J. “Learning from the pilot schools, 1999-2001.” October 2001: Education Matters, Inc., Cambridge, MA.) 
   First established in 1995, Pilot Schools have been in existence for over a decade.  The demand for school choice in Boston was – and continues to be high – and Pilot Schools became an alternative within the district to school options outside of BPS.  Of the estimated 79,000 school-age children in the city of Boston, about 27%, or 21,010, do not attend district schools, but instead attend private, parochial, or charter schools, or suburban schools through a voluntary desegregation program. 
   Pilot Schools are created in part as a response to the first-time opening of charter schools in the city of Boston and statewide in 1995.  Pilot Schools aimed to keep human (students and families) and financial resources within the Boston Public Schools.  Massachusetts currently grants two types of charters – Commonwealth and Horace Mann.  Commonwealth charter schools operate independently of a school district, while Horace Mann charter schools are in-disrict charter schools which must gain approval from the local school committee and teachers union. The Horace Mann model is patterned after Boston’s Pilot School model except approval is conferred by the state. Commonwealth charter schools provide some students and families with choice options; Pilot Schools represent a more comprehensive and systemic strategy for improving urban public schools, while serving a larger percentage of students. 
    Nationally, Pilot Schools represent a unique model of school reform.  In the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) era of greater school centralization and mandated practices, Pilot Schools represent a powerful alternative.  Pilot Schools are granted maximum autonomy in exchange for increased accountability within a school district. The Pilot School model has proven to be both a successful and sustainable strategy in transforming urban public schools.