Junior Achievement of Central Maryland takes a subject that many assign to the Scrooges of the world and makes it fun and interesting ? especially at its mock commercial district called BizTown.
Here a 2,000-square-foot facility at the nonprofit?s Owings Mills headquarters simulates a town?s shops and businesses, enlisting students in jobs that teach them hands-on lessons in wealth creation, financial management, workplace preparation, free enterprise economics, financial literacy and other skills needed in the global marketplace.
“They run the town for the day,” said Junior Achievement of Central Maryland Executive Vice President Jennifer Mykytyn.
“Before they come, [they] actually interview for different positions,” she said. “They know what shop they?re going to work; they know what job they?re going to have; and they have job descriptions. ? It really helps them connect the dots.”
BizTown has 100 days of operation scheduled for the 2007-2008 school year, Mykytyn said, exposing thousands of Maryland students ? 55 percent from the Baltimore area ? to the essentials of entrepreneurship, savings plans, check writing, retirement matters and broader economic issues.
It combines classroom instruction in 19 preparatory modules with the daylong town experience, which requires about 60 students and a host of adult volunteers to execute.
“It gives Maryland students an opportunity to experience how the real world works and how the economics of the town works.” said Roger Young, vice president for investor and media relations at Black and Decker Corp., who volunteers with the program.
But the 50-year-old nonprofit, whose national organization began as an after-school program in 1919 and now is in 120 countries, also offers an in-school business curriculum ? carried out by its 2,000 volunteers ? that last school year reached 23,000 students, an increase of almost 33 percent over its 2003-2004 year.
“It?s a great way for young students, K-12, to learn about the free enterprise system ? by learning from business directly and then having an opportunity to actually apply the knowledge and skills that they?re developing,” said Katharine Oliver, assistant state superintendent for the department.
