STEWARDSHIP - Austin ISD

Bowie High School Teacher Surprisedwith $25,000 Milken AwardBowie High School Principal StephenKane (left) joins football great RoseyGreer, a Milken Family Foundationrepresentative, Governor Rick Perry,and Texas Education CommissionerRobert Scott in congratulating teacherCynthia Carroll on her $25,000 award.Bowie High School mathematics teacherCindi Carroll was honored in October asa recipient of the $25,000 Milken FamilyFoundation National Educator Award, a prestigiousrecognition for her leadership, talent and dedicationin the teaching field.“Teachers like Cindi Carroll set the standardfor all educators,” said Robert Scott, Commissionerof Education for the Texas Education Agency. “Weare extremely proud of Cindi and the other TexasMilken winners. They deserve every recognition fortheir devotion to the schoolchildren of Texas.”Ms. Carroll, who has been an educator for 11years, says she was inspired to become a geometryteacher by her own high school geometry teacher.An innovator when it comes to teaching techniques,she engages her students by helping them“see” geometry in everyday life. She also inspireslearning by forming classroom groups in which studentswork together to master course material. She is Bowie’smathematics department chair and was a semifinalist forAISD’s 2007 Teacher of the Year.The Milken National Educator Awards were createdin 1985 to reward, retain and attract the highestcaliber professionals to our nation’s schools. This is the21st year that Milken Family Foundation representativeshave crisscrossed the country to name, during surprisenotification ceremonies, recipients of the awards.Since its inception, the Milken Educator Awardshave recognized more than 2,300 educators and presentedthem with more than $58 million in cash awards.Ms. Carroll is AISD’s third Milken honoree in the pastfour years.“Teachers have the most important jobs in America,”said Milken Family Foundation Chairman andCo-Founder Lowell Milken. “We entrust them with theenormous responsibility of preparing our youngpeople with the skills, knowledge and experiencesneeded to be successful in a most challenging 21stcentury. The Milken Educator Awards say, in avery public way, that greatness in education must berecognized and rewarded.”Milken Educator Award winners are selectedbased on effective instructional practices andstudent learning results, exemplary educationalaccomplishments beyond the classroom, stronglong-range potential for professional and policyleadership, and serving as a motivational role modelfor students, colleagues and the community.Research shows that the most importantschool-based factor driving student performanceis the quality of the classroom teacher. The mosteffective teachers produce as much as five times thelearning gains of the least effective teachers. HCampus Cheer(continued from page 9)The Ann Richards School for Young WomenLeaders has received a $50,468 Innovation GenerationGrant from the Motorola Foundation. Throughits Environmental Leaders Program, the school will equipclassrooms with NOVA 5000 computing devices thatwill allow students to collect data and conduct environmentalscience experiments that are expected to resultin student improvements in computer literacy, Math,and Science.Liberal Arts & Science Academy students earned honorsin the Siemens Foundation Competition in Math,Science, and Technology. Wesley Chen placedas a regional finalist, one of only 15 finalists in Texas.Jasmen Thum and Alicia Zang earned regionalsemifinalist honors, and were two of only 39 semifinalistsin Texas.Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) of Austin recentlypresented its “traveling trophy” to Gullett ElementarySchool for raising the most money during the2007 RIF Read-A-Thon. For the third consecutive year,Gullett students earned the distinction as Austin’s topschool in raising money for RIF — more than $16,000 tohelp purchase new books for low-income students in 39Austin area schools. The 2007 RIF Read-A-Thon,presented by Spansion, Inc. took place in 25 Austin andEanes schools in September to benefit ReadingIs Fundamental of Austin, a local non-profit dedicatedto promoting literacy through personal ownership ofbooks. More than 2,500 students read more than 91,000pages and will receive community service certificates andspecial incentives in recognition for their service to othersin the Austin area. H10