A Message from Indiana's
Superintendent of Public Instruction

DR. SUELLEN K. REED

It is a pleasure for me to congratulate each of you as recipients of the Milken Family Foundation National Educator Award. Your achievement and this national recognition reflect on all of us in education in Indiana.

We take pride in your individual accomplishments that have helped so many children. One by one, you help children to build bright futures and happy, successful lives. Each of you was chosen as an educator who rings the bell of education proudly and in the belief that nothing means more than true education for our children in their achieving happy and successful lives.

I believe that each of you exemplifies the concepts of the bell-ringers belief in the value of true education. If I may repeat the words of the philosopher John Ruskin who put it this way a century ago:

entire object of true education is to make people
Not merely to do the right things, but to enjoy them;
Not merely industrious, but to love industry;
Not merely learned, but to love knowledge;
Not merely pure, but to love purity;
Not merely just, but to hunger and thirst after justice.

The Milken Family Foundation is investing thoughtfully in education with its focus on educators. The Foundation is one of our partners who believes that nothing means more than education for our children. It has chosen the Milken Educator Awards program as one means to elevate the teaching profession and to encourage young people to join in education's campaign against ignorance.

The Milken Educator Award is a singular recognition of your professional achievement. It also opens an avenue for professional development through your association with the Foundation's education conferences. You have a unique front-row opportunity to keep abreast of ideas and trends in education.

I congratulate you on behalf of our State Board of Education and the Indiana Department of Education, and I also extend appreciation on their behalf to the Milken Family Foundation for its thoughtful investment in these programs to recognize educators. Public education does not function in isolation, and it cannot achieve its universal goals without the wisdom and insight from other sectors of our society.