The game, backed by 40 state councils on economic education, comes with teachers guides and lesson plans. But the Stock Market Game was slow to develop a workable Web site and fell behind the competition in service and technology. The teams compete by picking stocks. They research their investments on the Internet. Competitions last for up to 14 weeks.
Winners get T-shirts or bragging rights.
I'm strongly in favor of introducing high-schoolers to stock market concepts. The sooner that young people learn financial terms and strategies, and get some practice making decisions, the better they'll do when the money is for real. As always, however, the quality of the education depends on the teacher and on what, exactly, is being taught. I have questions, mostly about Stock-Trak. Bob Mitchell, head of the Maine Council of Economic Education, switched to Stock-Trak from the Stock Market Game a year ago.