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Utica Community Schools Teacher wins $25,000 Milken Educator Award
Mark Julien from Henry Ford II High School in Sterling Heights presented with Michigan’s 2013 “Oscar of Teaching”
October 01, 2013
Mark Julien, an English and Language Arts teacher at Henry Ford II High School in Sterling Heights, was surprised with an unrestricted $25,000 Milken Educator Award at a school-wide assembly. As Dr. Richard Zeile, State Board of Education member and Dr. Jane Foley, senior vice president, Milken Educator Awards presented the Award, thunderous applause arose from students, colleagues and invited guests. This was the first 2013 Milken Educator Award presented in the country and the only one in Michigan.
“Our public education system is at the heart of America’s promise and essential to safeguarding the American dream for future generations,” said Lowell Milken, chairman and co-founder of the Milken Family Foundation. “With research confirming that effective teachers represent the single most important school-related factor in raising student achievement, it is important to honor them, learn from them, and inspire more capable people to enter the profession. As the program’s motto extols, the future belongs to the educated.”
About the Award Recipient
When Mark Julien speaks, students, parents, teachers and administrators listen. With his creativity, compassion, drive, diplomatic and data-tracking skills and inspiring leadership style, the rising star is not only influential at Henry Ford II High School in Sterling Heights, but throughout the Macomb County schools. At Ford—where he teaches subjects such as Advanced Placement English literature and composition, Honors English and 10th-grade English, and is also a popular varsity baseball assistant coach—Julien is known as a teacher whom students returning from college love to visit. And no wonder; they were prepared for the demands of college and careers thanks in a big way to Julien's rigorous standards in reading, writing and critical thinking. Top performers aren't the only beneficiaries; Julien relishes the opportunity to help struggling learners as well.
With all of his students, Julien uses the best research-based practices; assiduously tracking progress and studying the data to learn what approaches work best. He employs approaches such as think-pair-share, guided highlighted reading and close and critical reading. His embrace of technology includes posting lessons on Schoology and requiring students to submit assignments on turnitin.com so that he knows they're doing their own work. An advocate of blended learning, Julien has students watch videos of his lessons at home, freeing up classroom time for discussion. He makes himself available to students online around the clock.
Julien's efforts have had stellar results. His data shows that students who take his weeklong ACT preparation workshop can increase their scores by 2 points, a meaningful difference on this college entrance exam. The workshop is so successful that it has been extended to the entire 150,000-student Macomb Intermediate School District. One student coached by Julien got a perfect score on her ACT and was honored at the White House as a Presidential Scholar. Julien's Advanced Placement students continue to score above the national average on College Board AP exams.
Julien is also on special assignment for the local Utica Community Schools district, where he is credited with developing significant curriculum. He goes from school to school working with teachers as an English Language Arts curriculum specialist, preparing them for the new Smarter Balanced student assessment system. He makes presentations to parents as well, making them feel involved and respected. In all his roles, Mark Julien has shown that he will not waver when it comes to what is right for students.
Details
The Milken Educator Awards, conceived by Lowell Milken to attract, retain and motivate outstanding talent to the teaching profession, is the nation’s preeminent teacher recognition program, dubbed the “Oscars of Teaching” by Teacher Magazine. Since 1987, the Milken Family Foundation, co-founded by Michael and Lowell Milken, has devoted more than $136 million in funding to the Milken Educator Awards, including over $64 million in individual Awards to nearly 2,600 recipients plus powerful professional development opportunities and networking with leading education stakeholders.
Michigan Milken Educators
Michigan joined the Milken Educator Awards program in 1990.
84 Michigan Milken Educator Award recipients
$2,100,000 cash awards presented to Michigan Milken Educator Award recipients
More:
Milken Educator Awards Website: www.MilkenEducatorAwards.org
Michigan Department of Education Website: www.michigan.gov/mde
Utica Community Schools Website: www.uticak12.org
Milken Family Foundation Website: www.mff.org
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For more information, visit our Media Kit page.
Education reform leader Lowell Milken created the Milken Educator Awards to recognize exemplary teachers and established the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NIET) to generate more talented teachers, www.niet.org. NIET operates TAP: The System for Teacher and Student Advancement and the Best Practices Center. Lowell Milken recently provided the founding gift for the UCLA School of Law’s Lowell Milken Institute for Business Law and Policy. For more information about Lowell visit www.lowellmilken.com.