Culture of Ownership
They Can -- They Want To -- They Belong
Best Teaching Practices

Culture of Ownership

Real business ownership -- working hard and smart together for profit -- generates ambition to learn, compete, and prosper.

Student Owners become enterprising. They want to:

• invest: seek opportunity, envision success, develop talents and skills
• work hard: accept responsibility, demonstrate integrity and initiative, persevere
• work smart: be a capable, versatile, innovative team player, lifelong learner
• profit: create wealth, earn fulfillment and respect, do well by doing good

Two-thirds of U.S. entrepreneurs are children of entrepreneurs.

Young people who foresee real educational and economic opportunity are more likely to invest in themselves than youth who foresee only meager prospects.

"I think that was their biggest transformation: that by taking this class, being a part of a corporation, running their own business, they saw that they could do it."

Seventy-three percent of African-American teens, 69% of Hispanics,
and 55% of Whites have never spoken with a business owner.

• In 2005, they could have created one-third more new small businesses,
  become self-employed at over four times the actual rate, and
  created over 2.1 million more new jobs.
• But not if they cannot experience enterprising values and entrepreneurial spirit.
  
  "Of all my students, none had come in and said, 'I want to own a business.'
  By the end, a third of them had an idea for a business they wanted to start."

Owning a business in school offers all young people the cultural foundation
for economic success handed down to more privileged children at home.

They Can -- They Want To -- They Belong

Ownership responsibility fosters feelings of competence and confidence.

Fulfilling challenging "bottom-line" responsibilities gives Owners a "can do" attitude. It prepares them to compete and prosper.

"They get a lot of confidence doing this. It helps them get along better with people, too."

Enterprise experience proves the real-world worth of education.

Profit proves what their Skills Statements and Business Portfolios document:
Learn More, Earn More.

"They understand that they've learned all these skills they can put down on their resume. They know how to go out and buy things, how to use the computers, how to write letters, things my students would never have had the opportunity to do."

Owners communicate and collaborate in a Corporate community of practice.

Investing and working together promote trust among teachers and students.

"We would talk about what we did, how we did it, what went well, what didn?' go so well, who did a better job at certain tasks, who would like to learn how to do a particular job."

Continued

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