The Ryan Fellowship is designed to prepare individuals to lead start-up schools and achieve accelerated growth in the beginning years of operation. The content is based on the Achievement Accelerate Model of Success, which focuses on four predictors of success: Build the Team; Create the Climate; Execute Core Curriculum (with Expertise); and Manage Performance.
The Program consists of:
Inspired by the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship, the elements of The Ryan Fellowship include:
1.) Highest Leadership Potential Teachers: Identifying and selecting the highest leadership potential urban teachers in the United States, each of whom has demonstrated the ability to accelerate student achievement as a teacher or administrator;
2.) Academic Foundation: In partnership with Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, The Alain Locke Initiative empowers Ryan Fellows through a one of a kind summer institute at Kellogg covering cutting edge entrepreneurial business and school leadership principles and practices that must be mastered to create a high achieving urban school. The summer institute culminates in each Ryan Fellow creating an initial draft, similar to a doctoral thesis, of a personal Leadership Strategy and Playbook focused on the leadership strategies and tactics they plan to implement as a new principal to rapidly create a high achieving urban school;
3.) Field Study and Leadership Thesis: Each Fellow spends the Fall semester on the leadership team of an urban charter school reflecting on their strategy in the real world context of their new placement and evolving their personal Leadership Strategy and Playbook in light of insights gleaned from their Field Study;
4.) Placement as a Principal and Mentored Launch: After completion of the Field Study each Ryan Fellow will be hired by a charter school or management organization as a principal preparing to open or take over leadership of a new charter school campus the following school year. Ryan Fellows have the benefit of a Ryan Fellow Mentor, an urban principal with demonstrated success in creating an achievement accelerating urban school, who will support the Fellow as they implement their Leadership Strategy and Playbook as a new principal.
