Milken Family Foundation National Educator Award

Margaret Lockhart, an English teacher and chairwoman of the English Department at Lingle Middle School in Rogers, and Corey Oliver, an eighth-grade English teacher at Bob Courtway Middle School in Conway, are both Arkansas winners of 2007 Milken Family Foundation National Educator Awards, which include an unrestricted financial prize of $25,000. Up to 100 educators across the country are being recognized with the awards for their outstanding work at surprise ceremonies this fall.

All Milken National Educators will be spotlighted at a national gala and awards ceremony in the spring. National Educator Award winners also become members of the Milken Educator Network, a coalition of educators who provide expert resources and serve as partners to network members and policymakers as they help cultivate and expand innovative programs in their classrooms, schools and districts.

Milken Family Foundation Chairman and Co-founder Lowell Milken created these awards in 1985 to recognize, celebrate and attract the highest caliber school professionals. Since the program’s inception, more than $54 million in cash prizes have been awarded to 2,100-plus educators. In Arkansas, the Foundation has awarded $1.5 million to 60 recipients since the program began.

“Excellence must not be the exception in our schools, but rather the norm,” Lowell Milken has said.

Lockhart has also served as Lingle Elementary School’s literacy coach. She was named Rogers’ Middle School Teacher of the Year in 2005 and received her National Board Certification in 2004.

In nominating her, Mark Sparks, deputy superintendent with the Rogers School District, said, “Simply put, Ms. Lockhart is the best teacher I have had the pleasure to know. I say this because not only do her students achieve, but she helps them do so with the greatest of dignity.”

Oliver received both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Central Arkansas. He received his National Board Certification in 2006 and belongs to the National Council of Teachers of English and the Arkansas Council of Teachers of English and Language Arts.

In recommending Oliver to be named a Milken National Educator, his principal, Jerry Whitmore, said that Oliver’s “strengths are really his teaching techniques. He knows how to get and keep the interest level of his students; he knows how to keep them engaged and on-track … He is just a great teacher … [who] teaches from the heart.”