Archived Information

PREPARING YOUTH FOR SUCCESS IN A GLOBAL SOCIETY

**By Dr. Cathy Ashmore,**

**Executive Director, Consortium for Entrepreneurship Education**

Entrepreneurship is a key driver of our economy. Wealth and a high
majority of jobs are created by small businesses started by
entrepreneurially minded individuals, many of whom go on to create big
businesses. People exposed to entrepreneurship frequently express that
they have more opportunity to exercise creative freedoms, higher
self-esteem, and an overall greater sense of control over their own
lives.

As a result, many experienced business people, political leaders,
economists, and educators believe that fostering a robust
entrepreneurial culture will maximize individual and collective economic
and social success on a local, national, and global scale. It is with
this in mind that the **National Content Standards for Entrepreneurship
Education** were developed to prepare youth and adults in an
entrepreneurial economy.

# National Curriculum Standards Define the Field

For several decades we have the defined entrepreneurship education as a
lifelong learning process that builds expertise at all levels of
education in progressively more difficult learning experiences. The
Consortium for Entrepreneurship Education is proud to release the new
National Content Standards for Entrepreneurship Education this year. We
started by asking entrepreneurs "what they do, and what they need to
know to do it". After a series of entrepreneur focus groups across the
country, we sought input from a wide variety of educators.

The resulting 15 standards are organized in three major areas:
Entrepreneurial Skills, Ready Skills, and Business Functions. Supporting
the Standards are 403 Performance Indicators that serve to assist
teachers in organizing the objectives, learning activities, and
assessments appropriate to the students they teach. No one course can
expect to teach all 403 Performance Indicators, and all of them can be
addressed in progressively more advanced objectives throughout
education...thus developing "expertise" for our future entrepreneurs as
well as employees of entrepreneurial businesses.

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**Entrepreneurship...a 21^st^ Century Skill**

The Partnership for 21^st^ Century Skills has recognized
entrepreneurship as a content area that has been overlooked in the
schools as well as a context for teaching academic skills in a real
world setting. Recently they have added the following component to their
definition of Business, Financial, and Economic Literacy: "Developing
entrepreneurial skills to enhance worker productivity and career
options." [www.21stcenturyskills.org](http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/)

We believe that entrepreneurship education can:

1.  **Help educators achieve No Child Left Behind,** Adequate Yearly
    Progress. Use entrepreneurship experiences to deliver basic academic
    skills.

2.  **Create jobs....**It's a longterm investment, not a quick fix!

3.  **Motivate youth to achieve in a variety of skill areas**. There is
    no industry that will not benefit from the entrepreneurial mindset.

4.  **Maintain the competitiveness of the nation** as the global economy
    grows and competes more effectively as well.

5.  **Create productive citizens** that contribute to the local economy.

# Learning to "Discover" Opportunities

The entrepreneurs that provided the foundations for our Standards
defined 5 stages of the entrepreneurial process: **1.Discovery, 2.
Concept Development, 3. Resourcing, 4.Actualization, and 5.
Harvesting**.. All of these processes provide opportunities for
"learning experiences" in education. We would especially challenge
educators to include "Discovery" at a very minimum into the experiences
of students K-12. America is proud of the creativity that has moved our
nation forward economically over the decades. It will become
increasingly more important in a competitive global economy.

Edward deBono, a well-known advocate for creative thinking, says that
too often we only teach students "how to do something". He says,

> The three aspects of thinking are 1.What is, 2.What may be, and 3.
> What can be. We are almost totally obsessed with **"what is".** We
> underestimate the extremely valuable contribution that **"what may
> be"** has made to progress. And we do very little about "**what can
> be"** even though our future depends entirely on this aspect.

The Consortium for Entrepreneurship Education, made up of 20 state
departments of education and over 40 other organizations supporting
entrepreneurship education nationwide, welcome this opportunity to share
the concept of entrepreneurship as a lifelong learning process that will
prepare youth to succeed in a global economy. For further information
and assistance for teachers please go to our website
[www.entre-ed.org](http://www.entre-ed.org/)

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**1601 W Fifth Ave. #199, Columbus, OH 43212 614-486-6538 Fax
419-791-8922 <cashmore@entre-ed.org>
[www.entre-ed.org](http://www.entre-ed.org/)**\
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## We are proud to be able to share the National Content Standards for Entrepreneurship Education in support of the lifelong learning process... a message to educators from elementary grades through secondary and postsecondary education as well as adult and community-based programs.

## We BELIEVE....

1.  Entrepreneurs are not \"born\"...they \"become\" through the
    experiences of their lives

2.  Entrepreneurs have a great diversity of personal characteristics,
    the common one: being willing to take a risk in return for a profit.

3.  Anyone can be an entrepreneur at any time of one\'s life.

4.  Although there is no educational degree requirement to become an
    entrepreneur, it is helpful to have developed good support skills
    including communications, interpersonal abilities, economic
    understanding, digital skills, management, and math/finance skills.

5.  Entrepreneurial ventures are the major source of new jobs in the
    economy...for the owner and for new employees.

6.  Entrepreneurship is NOT learned by reading a textbook and then
    taking a test to prove you are one.

7.  Young people can build confidence in their abilities to become
    entrepreneurs in their future as a result of a variety of
    entrepreneurial activities provided throughout education.

8.  Entrepreneurship education activities are a real-life vehicle for
    developing academic skills.

9.  Entrepreneurship Education enables employees to be more successful
    as a result of understanding the operations of a small business and
    the problems of their boss.

10. Entrepreneurs are found in every occupation or career cluster

11. Entrepreneurship education opportunities are important at all levels
    of education, from experiences for elementary school children
    through skill development for existing entrepreneurs.

12. Entrepreneurship success varies with the goals of the individual,
    from part-time income to fast-growing corporate structures.

## We hope you will want to use the National Standards for Entrepreneurship Education in developing appropriate new programs and activities for youth and adults involved in Entrepreneurship Education as a lifelong learning process. 

**Many thanks to the Kauffman Foundation for sponsoring this major new
initiative.**