Home > Grants
	Last updated 12/12/02

The NEA Foundation Award for Teaching Excellence

2002 Recipient of The NEA Foundation
Award for Teaching Excellence

Katherine Wright Knight
Arkansas Education Association

Katherine Wright Knight teaches English at Parkview Arts/Science Magnet High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, where she has worked for the past twenty-three years. Her assignments have included tenth grade pre-Advanced Placement English, African-American Literature, and Remedial English, a course she team-taught with a mathematics instructor. In November 2001, Ms. Knight became one of the first teachers in the state to receive National Board Certification in Adolescent/Young Adult English Language Arts.

Throughout her career, Ms. Knight has constantly examined and refined her teaching practice in order to better serve both students and colleagues. When she discovered the Slavin Model of cooperative learning, she not only adopted the method in her own classroom, but also became a certified trainer and statewide consultant. She mentors student teachers from four institutions of higher education, and has worked for numerous policy-making organizations, including the Arkansas Language Arts Framework committee, Arkansas Writing Project, Arkansas ACT Council, and National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). This wide variety of professional roles ensures that Ms. Knight is on the cutting edge in her subject matter as well as in her methods of instruction and assessment.

Ms. Knight is an established leader in the Arkansas Education Association (AEA). Since 1982, she has represented the local education associations in court actions concerning the desegregation of the Little Rock, North Little Rock, and Pulaski County school districts. She was elected AEA secretary-treasurer in 2002, and previously served as president of the Little Rock Classroom Teachers Association, chairperson of the AEA Instruction and Professional Development Committee, and delegate to the state and national representative assemblies. She is the 2002 Little Rock School District Teacher of the Year. Sid Johnson, AEA President, notes that he has "never known a more professionally well-rounded teacher. She is the quintessential educator."

For more information on The Horace Mann Companies, our partners in
The NEA Foundation Award for Teaching Excellence, click here.

Award for Teaching Excellence main page

Salute to Excellence in Education Gala main page