Agent of change

We ask a lot from teachers. They’re overworked, underpaid, and too often overlooked, yet they’re the ones shaping the kind of people our children will become. 

That’s what makes Ashlie Crosson, the 2025 National Teacher of the Year, such a powerful example of what’s possible when heart meets purpose. At Mifflin County High School in Pennsylvania, she’s teaching English and opening doors. Through memoir-based courses, journalism projects, and a visionary program called MC Goes Global, she’s helped students from rural and low-income backgrounds see beyond the limits of their small community. Sixty-seven students have already traveled abroad through her initiative, discovering firsthand what it means to be part of a larger world.

Ashlie’s approach was shaped in part by her own experience as a first-generation college student and her time in the Fulbright Teachers for Global Classrooms Program, which gave her new tools to connect global issues to local lives. Her students learn to write with empathy, think critically, and see themselves as agents of change.

Teachers like Ashlie remind us that education is about possibility as well as academics. Even when the system undervalues them, they keep showing up with heart, creativity, and faith in their students’ potential. Congratulations to Ashlie Crosson, whose work proves that one teacher’s vision can ripple far beyond the classroom and into the world her students will one day lead.