By Wayne Jones, Partner, JPS Solutions

Many of the charter middle and high schools I’ve worked with over the years have had one goal in mind and one goal only: College preparedness.

 And this is for good reason. In today’s economy, a college degree is necessary for most jobs and, accordingly, charter high school programs should prepare students for acceptance into and success in college. Yet, high school programs across the country are struggling to prepare students for college. For instance, of the high school students in the class of 2009 who took the ACT test, fewer than one quarter met each of the benchmarks for college readiness in math, science, English and reading and, especially troubling, just over a quarter met none of them. Accordingly, a focus on college preparedness is a necessary and positive thing.

That said, I’m wondering now if charter middle and high schools—and especially urban schools serving largely African American student populations—need to expand their vision to include a new goal of preparing students to become entrepreneurs. A recent survey by Harris Interactive entitled The Youth Entrepreneurship Survey 2010 , revealed that 40 percent of young people would like to start a business someday. The desire for entrepreneurship is even greater among young African Americans. In one of the largest ever national studies of African American opinion, sponsored in 2008 by Radio One, Inc and conducted by Yankelovich, a whopping 69% of surveyed African American teenagers believed that they would “own their own business someday.” (http://blackamericastudy.com/fact-sheets/Teens_FINAL2.pdf )  

The motivation for entrepreneurship among African American teenagers is not hard to fathom. As an African American child, I grew up hearing about how Berry Gordy opened a tiny record store and then a tiny record production company that eventually became the legendary Motown Records. I also grew up hearing about how John Johnson leveraged a $500 loan from his mother to create the multi-million Johnson Publishing Company, which has published Ebony magazine for more than 60 years. Young people today have grown up knowing the stories of successful minority entrepreneurs like BET’s Robert Johnson, filmmaker Tyler Perry, music artist and businessman Jay-Z and television titan Oprah Winfrey. In an economy where African American unemployment exceeds 15 percent, the desire among African American youth to “control their own destinies” through entrepreneurship is more than understandable. Indeed, for these young people, starting a business may be a perfectly logical career choice. As Cathy Hughes, a successful African American entrepreneur and founder of Radio One, recently said at a White House reporters roundtable, “The hip hop generation believes in education but not…that you need a good education to get a good job; They want a good education in order to work for themselves and start their own businesses.”

So what does that mean for charter schools? How do charter schools—and especially schools serving African American students—tailor their academic programs to prepare students to run successful 21^st Century businesses? Certainly charter high schools should place a strong emphasis on written and verbal communication skills, critical thinking and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math), along with financial literacy. But what other factors contribute to creating a school culture that builds entrepreneurial skills?

Maybe a starting point can be found in the “Critical Elements of Effective Entrepreneurship Education” developed by the Consortium for Entrepreneurship Education in a recent newsletter. (http://www.entre-ed.org/_entre/16-4.pdf) The 10 elements are:  

1.  Learning through real world experiences: trial and error, not just reading a textbook.

2.  Starting in elementary schools (as a lifelong learning process) to develop an entrepreneurial mindset (we don’t become good drivers the first day we get behind the wheel).

3.  Discovering opportunities everywhere—in every industry and career area.

4.  Practicing creative thinking - how to do something better or in a new way.

5.  Encouraging students to ask questions and solve problems on their own. (Modern communications technology makes it easier than ever before).

6.  Involving entrepreneurs and business people as mentors for students.

7.  Infusing entrepreneurial concepts into all academic disciplines.

8.  Spreading the understanding of how entrepreneurship creates wealth and builds our American economy.

9.  Finding school administrators that will support educational change…integrating entrepreneurship across the curriculum.

10.   Encouraging young people to stay in school with the help of their parents… cooperating to motivate youth to find and use their personal abilities and “passions.”

Another helpful resource is the Consortium’s National Content Standards for Entrepreneurship Education, downloadable for free at http://www.entre-ed.org/Standards_Toolkit/.  

Charter school leaders and teachers need to be responsive to the desires of many of their students to become independent business owners. As entrepreneurial organizations, “mom and pop” charter schools are well-suited to do this. By integrating the elements of entrepreneurship into rigorous college preparatory academic programs, “mom and pop” charter schools can play a leading role in developing the next generations of successful leaders and entrepreneurs.

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This blog post is part of the Charter Notebook, sponsored by the Network of Independent Charter Schools, a project of the Center for Educational Innovation - Public Education Association.

The views expressed in Charter Notebook blogs represent the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the Center for Educational Innovation-Public Education Association or the U.S. Department of Education.