JWHS Teacher Sean Hackney Joins National Educator Fellowship

Joliet West High School English teacher Sean Hackney has been selected for the America Achieves Fellowship for Teachers and Principals as a fellow for the 2014-16 school years. This program is highly selective, with a less than 20% of nominees selected.

By providing a platform for sharing best practices and giving educators a voice in local, state, and national discussions about public education, the impact of the program extends beyond the individual fellows and into the communities they serve. Through this highly selective fellowship, Mr. Hackney joins 180 national fellows located across 35 states and the District of Columbia, to develop skills to significantly impact students locally and nationally. To launch this work, Mr. Hackney will travel to New York City October 17-19th to meet with other fellows to develop action plans, advise policymakers and thought leaders, dive deep into critical issues, and collaborate on ways to scale their impact, develop action plans, and advise policymakers and thought leaders.

“I am honored to work with incredible educators that are committed to transforming education for themselves and students,” said Hackney.

As part of their work, each fellow takes on an Impact Project to help expand their reach beyond the walls of their school and classrooms, gain an increased understanding of current research, opportunities, and challenges in practice, systems and policies. Past Impact Projects have resulted in teacher leadership and college access models lauded by the US Department of Education, informing the policy agenda of a mayor of a major urban city, and a regular blog on the widely read Ed Week Teacher, Connecting the Dots.

Regarding the Fellowship’s goals and aims, Mr. Hackney remarks, “I look forward to working with leaders and policymakers who I will engage through my work on advancing a higher bar; my state can learn a lot from listening closely to educators.”

“This Fellowship gives teachers and principals opportunity to apply their experience in schools to a broader context and impact education practice, policy, and public discussion. We are thrilled to welcome Sean Hackney as a 2014-2016 fellow in this prestigious program,” says Sarah Zuckerman, manager of the National Fellowship.

Hackney has taught at Joliet West for 8 years. He currently teaches English 1 Honors and Rhetoric 101 and 102. In addition to his teaching, Hackney is on the Instructional Leadership Team that writes curriculum aligned to the Common Core State Standards and district initiatives. Hackney has also recently published articles about this work in English Journal and Hybrid Pedagogy and blogs at http://highschoolrhetoric.blogspot.com/. His love of teaching helps students find their passion for learning.

About the national America Achieves Fellowship for Teachers and Principals
The America Achieves Fellowship for Teachers and Principals (AAFTP) provides outstanding educators the ability and opportunity to develop and showcase expertise and shape education practice, policy and the public conversation at the state and national level in order to raise the bar for students, communities, and the education profession.