http://www.gallup.com/poll/160040/students-entrepreneurial-aspirations-undeveloped.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=syndication&utm_content=morelink&utm_term=All%20Gallup%20Headlines
The following article offers evidence of the need for a comprehensive career and technical education program in the schools. Our Health Science curriculum is a good example of an effective career education program. Students take an introduction class that includes monthly job shadowing at the West Point Hospital. The next semester they continue the job shadowing as they take a class in medical terminology that provides 3 hours of articulated credit at Northeast Community. The second year the students complete the Certified Nurses Assistant class first semester that makes them employable as a CNA. During second semester they complete the Medication Aide class. After high school the students can choose to work as a CNA or continue their education in nursing or another medical field.
I have been exploring the idea of a student-run business in the community to give students "practical work experience and participation in the economy" that the article recommends. Arnold and Keya Paha are Nebraska schools that have a student business in place. Funding is the problem holding this idea back right now.
Entrepreneurial aspirations among fifth- through 12th-graders in the U.S. remained high and stable over the past year, according to the 2012 Gallup-HOPE Index. About four in 10 students (43%) say they plan to start their own business. Similarly, four in 10 students (42%) say they will invent something that changes the world.
Despite the fact that many students have entrepreneurial aspirations, relatively few, including those who plan to start their own businesses, have any direct work experience in the world of business or entrepreneurship. Overall, just 22% of students worked one hour or more at a paying job in the last week, and far fewer (7%) say they are currently interning
About one in four (26%) high school students in grades nine through 12 say they worked more than one hour at any paying job in the last week. Nineteen percent of younger students (grades five through eight) worked for one hour or more. Similarly, older students (10%) are slightly more likely than younger students (5%) to say they are currently interning with a local business.
Nearly six in 10 students (59%) say their school offers classes in how to start and run a business -- this is up from 2011.
About one-third (32%) of young people say their parents or guardians have started a business, which affords them a first-hand opportunity to see an entrepreneur in action. These students are somewhat more likely to say they plan to start their own businesses (49%) than those students whose parents are not business owners (40%).
Recommendations:
Practical work experience, in tandem with the guidance of a mentor in a new or small-business environment, may be a key to helping youth realize their future entrepreneurial aspirations.
U.S. cities must tap and ignite economic energy earlier and more intentionally in young Americans. With policies and curricula in place, leaders can begin to close the gap between entrepreneurial aspirations and attitudes in youth, on the one hand, and the lack of universal access to business/entrepreneurship education, practical work experience, and participation in the economy on the other. Successful small-business owners and entrepreneurs should invest in career literacy and education, and should partner with schools and educators to mentor and invest in young talent.
America needs to quickly develop a system to identify and equip young entrepreneurs who can rev up the nation's economic engine. This is critical to a future of continued global economic advantage and ensuring that generations of Americans can prosper and thrive.
