school, and instead of paying BES for its training, recipients are paid by BES a generous professional stipend of $80,000 for their year’s work in the program.

A Fellowship year generally entails:

• Approximately 100 days of intense training at BES’ central offices in Boston, which include visits to the top 30 performing urban charter schools in the northeast United States. Schools visited in the past have included Academy of the Pacific Rim (MA), Amistad Academy (CT), Boston Collegiate (MA), Milwaukee College Prep (WI), North Star Academy (NJ), and Roxbury Prep (MA).
• Extended residency in a high-performing urban charter school. During the residency, Fellows receive substantial access to school leadership, work intensively on a challenging project for the school, and participate in routine work every school day. These residencies develop Fellows’ technical skills and the critical people management and organizational skills that often separate great leaders from merely effective ones.
• Ongoing coaching and support around board and charter application development.

Building Excellent Schools Fellows share common beliefs far more than they share common experiences. Our Fellows represent a vast range of professional experience including education, business, law, and public administration. Classroom experience is not a pre-requisite for participation in the program. Ultimately, Building Excellent Schools is looking for high-capacity individuals that are deeply committed to fundamentally changing urban education. An exemplary Fellow is:

• A relentless achiever—they get the job done no matter what.
• Demanding of oneself and others—good is not good enough, only great will suffice.
• Willing to learn—accepts that only with careful study, guidance, and preparation can a great school be built.
• Highly flexible—can adapt to new knowledge, skills, and situations with ease.
• Mature and professional—can successfully operate in multiple professional environments, including business and government.

The culmination of the Fellowship year is the submission of a well-written, thoroughly researched charter application that reflects the best practices in urban school design. Ultimately this application will not be the reflection of a solely individual effort. Indeed, a successful Fellow will have built a Founding Board of 7-11 equally committed people from a variety of backgrounds that fully support and believe in the proposal and pledge to receive the charter and usher the school through its first years. The Fellow will also have made real community connections in the place in which he or she intends to found their school, ensuring that their effort is seen as integral to the community’s future. The school’s status as free-standing, locally controlled, and independent only affirms these connections.

This is the basic design of the Building Excellence Schools Fellowship. The early success of Fellows proves that our approach works and has great potential to dramatically impact urban education (see below). For the 2006-2007 Fellowship, we welcome applicants who wish to start charter schools in:

Albuquerque, NM Chicago, IL Columbus, OH Delaware Denver, CO Fort Lauderdale, FL Fresno, CA Gary, IN Indianapolis, IN Los Angeles, CA Milwaukee, WI Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN New York City Oakland/San Francisco, CA San Diego, CA Washington, DC

We are offering a $1,000 "finder's fee" to those who lead us to Fellow candidate-applicants who successfully enroll in the Building Excellent Schools Fellowship beginning in September 2006. Each successful referral is worth $1,000 to us - to be claimed by you personally or to flow directly to your school - whichever you prefer.