Junior Achievement and GLORIAD -- Executive Summary
For 85 years, Junior Achievement ‘s purpose has been to educate and inspire young people to value free enterprise, business, and economics to improve the quality of their lives. Since its inception, in 1919, Junior Achievement (JA) has benefited the lives of more than 47 million young people globally. Junior Achievement delivers 20 richly diverse K-12 integrated and sequential economic education programs through its network of 145 affiliated local offices located in all 50 states and two territories. In addition to its USA programs, 104 countries worldwide offer Junior Achievement programs to more than two million students.Throughout its rich history, Junior Achievement has developed a trustworthy relationship with its partners—schools, administrators, businesses and parents. At the heart of JA are its curricula. JA’s business, economics and financial education programs are designed to be easily integrated and relevant extensions of standard school curricula. The hallmark of Junior Achievement is its incorporation of volunteers from community businesses and civic leadership who come into the classroom to present lesson plans. During the 2002-2003 school year, approximately 113,361 volunteers delivered JA programs in 172,300 classrooms throughout the United States. These programs reached more than four million young people of all ages in a diversity of economic settings with variable racial/ethnic backgrounds. The dynamic interaction between students and classroom volunteers with practical business experience promotes active learning and brings theory to life, often resulting in a life-changing experience. No other organization has this “in-the-classroom impact.”
The Need
Joblessness, lack of training and alienation in communities are issues that plague America’s youth. Young people in the United States are leaving school unprepared to join the workforce. The gravity of this problem is well documented by the Gallup Organization and others – and the implications for the U.S. economy in the 21st century are profound. To adequately prepare for their futures, our youth need educational programs that provide an understanding of personal financial literacy, practical workplace readiness skills and the educational requirement necessary to pursue their career aspirations. Many schools, however, have a difficult time addressing the issue of workforce preparedness and personal finance. Because of this, many educators and youth organizations are urging Junior Achievement to step forward to fulfill this prerequisite. One of JA’s most widely praised middle grade programs that helps students and teachers identify these issues is, The Economics of Staying in School, as applied to personal economics.
The Solution:
Economic Education through Junior AchievementJA programs bridge the gap between the need for students to be grounded in economic principles and the inability of many traditional school curricula to address that need. JA offers experience- based learning through programs created by leading educators and taught by trained volunteers with hands-on experience from the local business community. These role models give students a real-world frame of reference and entrepreneurial values of which both the students and the volunteers benefit from the mentoring process that takes place.
A unique quality of JA programs is the method of progressive and sequential learning from one grade level to the next. The age-appropriate curricula teach elementary students about their roles in society as individuals, workers, and consumers and prepare middle grade and high school students for key economic and workforce issues. In addition to bringing the free enterprise system to life in the classroom, Junior Achievement programs teach young people the importance and economic effects of staying in school.
JA programs are designed by leading educators and undergo intense formative and summative evaluations. Recently, a longitudinally study conducted by the Western Institute for Research and Evaluation (WIRE), showed that students who participate in JA use higher levels of thinking to synthesize and integrate information. JA will continue to make a major, ongoing investment in developing and revising its programs to ensure they remain relevant and effective for young people, as well as meet or exceed our states’ educational standards as required by the No Child Left Behind Act.
Suggested JA Programs for Gloriad Network
JA Titan®
JA Titan is a high school program designed exclusively for classroom use. This classroom version offers lesson plans, administrator control, and economic scenarios, and can be accessed by any individual with an Internet connection at http://titan.ja.org. For implementation in the classroom, JA Titan must be set up through an Area Office.
JA Titan® introduces critical economics and management decisions through an interactive Web-based simulation.
Concepts – Business • Capital • Capital investment • Cash flow • Competition • E-commerce • Inventory • Management • Marketing • Price • Production • Profit • Research and Development • Risk • Supply
Skills – Analyzing situations • Applying information • Charting data • Computer • Consensus building • Critical thinking • Decision making • Giving reports • Interpreting data • Math computation • Reading • Teamwork
JA Personal Finance®
According to a 1998 survey of 1,509 high school seniors across the United States, students are under-informed about the basics of finance and leave school without the knowledge and skills they need to thrive in a world driven by complex financial factors (See Our Vulnerable Youth – The Financial Literacy of American 12th Graders, Lewis Mandell, State University of New York, 1999). Rising consumer delinquencies, sharp increases in personal bankruptcies, and inadequate saving for retirement during a period of general economic prosperity prompted states and school districts to require instruction in personal finance. In response, Junior Achievement is helping to solve the problems through the offering of JA Personal Finance.
Concepts - Budgets · Choices · Consumers · Credit · Economic institutions · Government · Income · Inflation · Insurance · Interest rates · Investment · Money · Opportunity cost · Risk · Saving · Scarcity · Taxes · Wages
Skills - Analyzing information · Computer · Conducting research · Decision making · Following directions · Giving reports · Interpreting data · Math computation · Making observations · Reading · Solving problems
You’ve got quite a life in front of you. Much of it will be spent working. That’s good news, because working in your chosen career field can be awesome. Studies show that JA helps better prepare students for the world of work. Now our new Student Center contains a lot of the stuff we normally present just in classrooms.
