Latest news with #NationalTeacheroftheYear
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Centre County educator named as a finalist for Teacher of the Year award
CENTRE COUNTY, Pa. (WTAJ) — Twelve teachers across Pennsylvania have been named as finalists for the 2026 Teacher of the Year award, and among them is a Centre County educator. Whilst the winner will not be announced until December, the program works to honor all teachers who are exemplary. The National State Teacher of the Year (NSTOY) program each year recognizes a professional who inspires students of all backgrounds and abilities to learn; who has the respect and admiration of students, parents, and colleagues; and who plays an active and useful role in both school and community. Nine from Central Pennsylvania selected for 58th Art of the State exhibition Here are the finalists: Elizabeth Troxell, Penns Valley Area School District, Centre County Whitney Bellomo, Dallastown Area School District, York County Nicole Birkbeck, Council Rock School District, Bucks County Katherine Blandino-Nienhuls, Pittsburgh Public School District, Allegheny County Renee Decker, Central York School District, York County Madeline Loring, Jefferson-Morgan School District, Greene County Jenna Love, Elizabethtown Area School District, Lancaster County Jennifer Nesser, Laurel Highlands School District, Fayette County Ashley Oldham, Big Spring School District, Cumberland County Andrea Rutledge, Hempfield School District, Lancaster County Rachel Sebastian, Governor Mifflin School District, Berks County Rebecca Showalter, Mount Lebanon School District, Allegheny County Later this year a teacher will be chosen to represent Pennsylvania at local, regional, and national functions culminating in the National Teacher of the Year ceremony at the White House. 'Ask anyone if they remember the teacher who inspired them most, and nearly everyone will immediately smile and name an educator from their past,' Acting Secretary of Education Dr. Carrie Rowe said. 'Excellent educators make a lifelong impact on the learners they serve each day in classrooms across the Commonwealth, and these 12 finalists demonstrate the qualities needed in a great teacher—supportive, engaged, and passionate about the learners in their care.' Leon Smith, a secondary teacher at Haverford High School in the Haverford Township School District in Havertown, was the 2025 Teacher of the Year. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Local teachers named finalists for Pennsylvania Teacher of the Year
(WHTM) – Several local teachers are among the finalists for Pennsylvania Teacher of the Year. The Department of Education says 12 educators are in the running to win the 2026 honor. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now The winner will be announced in December 2025 and will represent the state at local and national functions. The 12 finalists are: Whitney Bellomo, Dallastown Area School District, York County Nicole Birkbeck, Council Rock School District, Bucks County Katherine Blandino-Nienhuls, Pittsburgh Public School District, Allegheny County Renee Decker, Central York School District, York County Madeline Loring, Jefferson-Morgan School District, Jefferson County Jenna Love, Elizabethtown Area School District, Lancaster County Jennifer Nesser, Laurel Highlands School District, Fayette County Ashley Oldham, Big Spring School District, Cumberland County Andrea Rutledge, Hempfield School District, Lancaster County Rachel Sebastian, Governor Mifflin School District, Berks County Rebecca Showalter, Mount Lebanon School District, Allegheny County Elizabeth Troxell, Penns Valley Area School District, Centre County 'Ask anyone if they remember the teacher who inspired them most, and nearly everyone will immediately smile and name an educator from their past,' said Acting Secretary of Education Dr. Carrie Rowe. 'Excellent educators make a lifelong impact on the learners they serve each day in classrooms across the Commonwealth, and these 12 finalists demonstrate the qualities needed in a great teacher—supportive, engaged, and passionate about the learners in their care.' Pennsylvania's 2024 Teacher of the Year, Ashlie Crosson, was named the National Teacher of the Year. The Mifflin County School District teacher is the first-ever Pennsylvanian to receive the national honor. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
09-05-2025
- Politics
Congress celebrates impactful teachers: 'We certainly do appreciate them'
Lawmakers are celebrating Teacher Appreciation Week 2025 by paying tribute to the educators who helped them ascend to Congress. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said his wife and mother-in-law, who were both educators, are his favorite teachers. Johnson added that his classroom teachers along the way positively influenced the "trajectory" of his life. "I credit so many of those people, in many ways, for being in the position I'm in now," Johnson told ABC News. "Teachers are one of the most underpaid professions, so we certainly do appreciate them," he said. Rep. Monica De La Cruz, R-Texas, had several teachers who greatly impacted her life, but she told ABC News that it was her high school music teacher who recognized her talents. "Not so much musical talent, but he saw the opportunity to sharpen my leadership skills and he honed in on that and allowed me to grow," De La Cruz said. Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., who has worked in the banking, finance and insurance industries, said his high school math teachers helped challenge him. "That was really the building blocks for me moving on to finance and college," Donalds said. "I always appreciate them." Freshman Rep. Michael Baumgartner, R-Wash., a new member of the House Education and Workforce Committee, said he's a "big fan" of teachers. He brought a teacher from his district in Washington to President Donald Trump's address to a joint session of Congress because he said educators inspire "the next generation." Baumgartner, who comes from a family of educators, said he doesn't believe he would be where he is today without teachers. "I had nuns that taught me -- I went to a little Catholic school in a small rural community -- and I remember them making us do cursive [handwriting], which I hated, but it was kind of that discipline, that inspiration and just that love of learning that you developed, so it was great," Baumgartner told ABC News. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., praised the nation's teachers and said "the United States of America has to continue to celebrate and lift up our public schools, our educators and our capacity to make sure that people receive a first-rate education so that they have a pathway into the American dream." Several members of Jeffries' caucus are decorated educators, including Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-Conn., the 2016 National Teacher of the Year. Hayes launched the Congressional Teacher Caucus to start Teacher Appreciation Week 2025. She said the caucus aims to provide a dedicated platform for educators serving in Congress to find commonsense solutions to addressing the educational issues of today, according to a release from Hayes' office. But Hayes opposes the Trump administration's efforts to dismantle the Department of Education. She is squarely focused on defending public educators from the threats to winnow down the agency and launched the caucus in response to them. "I believe deeply in public education, and I'll always advocate not only for students but for the profession," Hayes previously told ABC News. In the upper chamber, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., a former teacher, launched the "Save Our Schools" campaign to investigate attempts to dismantle the Department of Education. "The federal government has invested in our public schools," Warren said last month in an exclusive interview with ABC News. "Taking that away from our kids so that a handful of billionaires can be even richer is just plain ugly, and I will fight it with everything I've got." Warren suggested she is working with students, teachers, parents and unions to "sound the alarm" nationwide. Prior to politics, Warren was inspired by her second grade teacher to join the education ranks. "Whenever someone asked about my future, I would stand a little taller and say, 'I'm going to be a teacher,'" Warren recalled. "It guided my entire life." Dismantling and defunding teacher preparation programs will ultimately hurt the profession, according to Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev. Horsford credited his high school teacher Mr. Ware for motivating him to become the first person in his family to attain higher education. "He said he saw something in me and that I needed to believe in myself," Horsford told ABC News. "Now, to be here in Congress, and achieve some of the things that I have been able to achieve, I wouldn't have been able to do that without that education, that investment in myself, by getting my college degree," he said.
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Teacher of the Year Asks Rural Students to Tackle Big Global Topics With Empathy
Ashlie Crosson has always loved the classroom. Growing up in Mifflin County, Pennsylvania, as one of seven kids of divorced parents, 'I found school to be this place of stability, while some other parts of my life were in transition and in changes,' Crosson told The 74 in a recent interview. 'I was a pretty natural student most of the time,' she added, 'but it was mostly because I had incredible teachers who invested in their students so far beyond what is expected of the job.' Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter She said she can remember all the way back to a kindergarten teacher who wrote her letters over the summer because she'd be her teacher again in first grade. 'I think I looked at that and said, 'This is an incredibly rewarding way to spend a life.'' It became a 14-year career that rewarded Crosson back — and on the national stage. The AP English teacher and high school journalism advisor was named the 2025 National Teacher of the Year April 29 by the Council of Chief State School Officers. The award, which follows her earning the Pennsylvania Teacher of the Year title, allows Crosson to spend the next year traveling across the country as an ambassador to fellow educators. Ashlie Crosson is interviewed on CBS Mornings on April 29 after being unveiled as the winner of the 2025 National Teacher of the Year. (CBS Mornings) She'll step away from her hometown high school five years after she went back there to answer 'this higher calling to return to the place that made me into a successful adult and into somebody who had found joy and happiness in their adult life.' Crosson, a first-generation college graduate, was selected from a pool of 56 local winners who were narrowed down to three other finalists: American Samoa's Mikaela Saelua, an English language teacher who is the first finalist from the seven islands in the program's history; Washington, D.C.'s Jazzmyne Townsend, an elementary school special education teacher and children's book author; and Colorado's Janet Renee Damon, a high school history teacher at a transfer school who runs a school-based podcast program focused on mental health disparities. Related Fostering Culture & Belonging: Reflections from Teacher of the Year Finalists 'Ashlie is an authentic, self-reflective leader who uses her experiences to help elevate her students into successful careers and life after high school,' the National Teacher of the Year Selection Committee said in a statement. 'She is also a strong and passionate representative for educators, using her voice to help people understand the weight of the teaching profession and the gravity of what teachers do.' Crosson said she grounds the bulk of her classroom work in real-world connections and projects, which allow her students to explore English from a careers-based perspective, while also building understanding and empathy for people of diverse backgrounds across the world. This is perhaps most apparent in her 10th-grade elective course called Survival Stories, which she began designing as a Fulbright Teachers for Global Classrooms fellow. In it, she wants her students to consider sweeping questions like, 'What problems are we trying to solve and in what ways do we need to communicate across borders?' To keep the course accessible and age appropriate, all the material —from non-fiction texts and memoirs, to podcasts and films — come from the voices of teens and adolescents. This allows her students, Crosson said, to have, 'really authentic and approachable conversations about things that can feel really big and really unapproachable.' Mifflin County, Pennsylvania (Mifflin County PA Official Website) In today's political climate, traversing some of these charged topics in rural Mifflin — an almost exclusively white town of just over 46,000, where almost 80% of the vote went to President Donald Trump in 2024 — might seem daunting. Crosson's approach is to begin with texts that take place as far from central Philadelphia as possible, so that by the time students reach stories from their own community — some of which they may have otherwise met with preconceived notions — they are able to analyze them with more nuance, greater empathy and a stronger text-based knowledge. 'We are all here, going through our own human experience,' Crosson said. She wants her students to ask, ' 'How do I relate to these people? How do I better understand these people?' Because at the end of the day, my students also want to be better understood. So there's a reciprocity there.' When her students come to her with challenging political questions — for example about Trump's recent executive orders looking to eradicate any focus on diversity, equity and inclusion in schools — she encourages them to return to the facts, asking, 'What are the actual details?' Related The Education Department Asked for Reports of DEI. It Might Get Something Else 'I'm able to keep my opinions out of things because I'm also first asking my students to put their opinions on pause,' she said, 'so that we have a chance to become more informed about things and have a better, more well-rounded understanding of what's going on before we start trying to figure out our feelings about it.' In addition to Survival Stories, Crosson teaches AP language and composition and 10th-grade English, while also running the school's journalism elective. At the newspaper and district magazine, called the Pawprint, she functions more as a boss and editor than teacher, she said, a position she cherishes, especially since a number of the high schoolers end up going into journalism. 'If students are basically getting simulations of future careers, I love that. And I love facilitating that.' Related Best Stories by USC Student Journalists of 2024 Crosson's classroom is covered with colorful student artwork from floor to ceiling and one corner hosts the 'One Word Board,'where students place the word that will most motivate and inspire them throughout the year. In a video for CBS Mornings, her students were asked to choose five words to describe Crosson: joyful, funny, caring, energetic (but not too much), passionate and dedicated were among their picks. One student said she sees Crosson as 'a safe space.' Another said that whenever she spots students struggling, 'She'll try to make you better as a student and [in] doing that you also learn lessons in how to take help and help others. So I think it makes students better people.' Along with her teaching responsibilities, Crosson serves as the communications chair for her union's negotiating team, assists with the school's Positive Behavior Interventions and Support programming, leads the district's international student trips and co-hosts 'The PL Playbook,' a podcast dedicated to teachers' professional learning. When asked her favorite book to teach, Crosson laughed and said, 'I honestly think that every book becomes my favorite book.' 'There are some books that I've taught for 10 years,' she continued 'and so now there's so many different colored pens [on the pages]. The book is the timeline of my teaching career. And there's something really beautiful about that.'
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
U.S. vehicle sales surge as buyers hope to beat tariff hikes
Southfield, Michigan — Akio Miller and his wife are accelerating their search for an SUV in suburban Detroit, test-driving a new Hyundai that could soon see a price increase due to a 25% tariff. "With everything going on with the up and down with the tariffs and the car prices, I was like, you know what, we need to probably look, like, sooner than later," Miller told CBS News. Miller said he "definitely" feels they'll pay more if they wait to purchase a vehicle. "Cars are already expensive," Miller said. "And then now they're tacking on the extra tariff taxes, I like to call it, it's going to be way out of our price range." The Millers are not alone. New car sales surged nationwide in March, jumping more than 17% from February, and nearly 12% from March of last year, according to an auto market report from Cox Automotive. Dealer inventory of pre-tariff vehicles also went down 10%, Cox Automotive found. However, a study released earlier this month by auto data company S&P Global Mobility determined that if the tariffs hold, overall vehicle sales in the U.S. are projected to fall by 700,000 this year and drop by 1.2 million in 2026. "You got a lot of sales in March that were basically people buying ahead of the tariffs," economist Patrick Anderson told CBS News. "And that means, unfortunately, we're gonna have lower sales later on when those people aren't buying cars that they originally intended to buy." A 25% tariff on vehicles and auto parts imported into the U.S. took effect on April 3. President Trump announced on Tuesday that he would provide some relief to U.S. automakers by ensuring they are not also levied with 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum. Approximately 90% of the parts in a Hyundai Ioniq 6 sedan with a sticker price of nearly $51,000 on George Glassman's dealership are manufactured in South Korea. Glassman said this is the kind of vehicle that would see its price rise if the tariffs remain in place. "No doubt, it would go up," Glassman said. "The question is, to how much it would go up." This unknown led to a record sales month in March for Glassman's Subaru, Hyundai, Kia and Mitsubishi dealerships in suburban Detroit. "We've stocked up in anticipation of higher prices," Glassman told CBS News. After tariffs take effect, he said, the rise in vehicle prices will be "immediate." "I don't think there's any doubt about it," Glassman added. Kristi Noem says she's "very confident" undocumented migrants stole her purse Ashlie Crosson named 2025 National Teacher of the Year Kristi Noem says if Kilmar Abrego Garcia returned to U.S. we'd "immediately deport him again"
