Alumna Melissa Leisner, a seventh-grade English and reading teacher at Prairie Knolls Middle School in Elgin, has won the Milken National Educator Award, which includes a cash prize of $25,000.

Since 1987, the Milken Family Foundation, co-founded by Michael and Lowell Milken, has given more than $64 million in awards to 2,600 recipients, according to milkeneducatorawards.org.

Leisner is the only teacher in Illinois to be honored with a 2013 Milken Educator Award, which is bestowed upon up to 40 educators across the country.

Overall, 65 percent of Leisner’s students reach the mid-high to high level of achievement as measured by the Northwest Evaluation Association Measures of Academic Progress tests, according to NIU Today.