I'll be away from Flypaper for the next two days at the annual meeting of the White House Fellows Association, but before departing I wanted to use this opportunity to encourage our talented readers to consider applying for this astonishingly valuable program.
You can read all about it here, but in short, it was created by President Johnson, and for the last 45 years it's been preparing youngish (mid-career) professions to take and excel in greater leadership roles in public life. Those selected spend a year working for a top federal government leader (typically in the White House or for a member of the cabinet), partaking in amazing professional development activities, and learning about leadership, service, and our nation's institutions.
Former Fellows are scattered throughout the??top ranks of the??current administration (e.g.??Director of National Intelligence??Dennis Blair) and previous ones (e.g. former Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao and??Secretary of State Colin Powell). They also hold some of the military's top posts and positions in academia, business, philanthropy, and more.
A person or two from the education world has been part of the small group selected (14-15 usually) in each of the last several years.??This year's cohort has a few with serious ed reform street cred.
If you've accomplished some good things so far, intend to have a career in public service broadly defined, and want to have the opportunity to learn from some of the nation's best leaders while serving the country from a high perch in the federal government, you ought to think about applying. If we're to improve America's schools, we're going to need lots of talented, well-trained leaders--the WHF program can help build them.
If you're interested, feel free to send me a note. I'll also probably be tweeting from the conference (lots of interesting speakers); you can follow that at??http://twitter.com/smarick.