Correlating Learning Objectives to State & National Standards
Recently, WIDS Consultant Susan Sharkey worked to make Junior Achievement’s (JA’s) K-12 work readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy education programs more transparent to teachers. Sharkey mapped out JA’s key learning objectives to show their correlation to state and national standards in a given grade level and subject. In doing so, Sharkey developed hundreds of state and national standard correlation reports for JA social studies, mathematics and language arts programs. All are listed on JA’s Web site at www.ja.org.
Junior Achievement – the world’s largest non-profit organization dedicated to preparing young people for success in a global economy – provides in-school and after-school learning opportunities to more than 4 million students in the United States and an additional 5 million students around the globe.
Working with business professionals and volunteers, JA programs include several one- to three-hour sessions on concepts related to topics such as business ethics, careers, economics, and banking, active listening, language, social studies and mathematics. More broadly, JA program content focuses on three areas: work readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy.
Often, JA program sessions are dropped into a K-12 teacher’s curriculum to enhance what students are already learning, according to Sharkey. “Most of the JA courses use workbooks, and incorporate hands-on learning techniques, guest speakers and small-group activities,” she says. “If a teacher wants to implement a JA program in the district, they can now show correlation to justify the program. They can show how the JA program can enhance existing curriculum.”
In all, Sharkey completed 280 correlation reports for 24 states and 22 JA programs. To view them, visit www.ja.org.