The assembly went quiet, then erupted: a Kentucky English teacher wins a $25,000 'Oscar of Teaching'

Dr Tyler Saylor thought he was attending a routine assembly at Harlan High School in Kentucky's Appalachian coal country. Instead, in front of his students, he was named Kentucky's 2026 Milken Educator — the award known as the 'Oscars of Teaching' — with a $25,000 prize to spend as he likes. Saylor, who teaches 11th- and 12th-grade English, is his district's first winner. He had already used his platform to create a scholarship encouraging his own students to become teachers.

SDG 4 · Quality education — Mechanism: individual leader