Our mission
Stocks in the Future’s mission is to develop highly motivated middle school students who are eager to learn and dedicated to attending class through the use of incentives coupled with a financial literacy curriculum focused on investing that reinforces Math, Language Arts and Social Studies.
Vision
Stocks in the Future’s vision is to see middle school students thrive in their classrooms, homes, and neighborhoods by investing in their financial future and themselves.
Purpose
SIF develops curriculum to give middle school students real-world financial education that is not provided in schools today. SIF teaches underserved middle school students personal finance skills to empower each student to take control of their financial and academic future.
Values
Educate, Encourage, Empower
We are a 501c3 organization which provides a three-year financial literacy curriculum for middle-school students in under-served communities. Developed at Johns Hopkins University, we introduce students to business concepts, expansion possibilities, reasons for taking a company public, and ways to compare company performances. As students learn, they earn money by attending school regularly and improving grades. Earnings up to 80 SIF dollars each year enables students to purchase publicly traded company stocks that become theirs when graduating from high school and turning eighteen. Academic fundamentals are reinforced throughout.
How our program works in schools
- Principals select students whose attendance and school performance need improvement and designate teachers from varying disciplines.
- Classes meet once a week during the school day.
- Given a scripted curriculum, teachers impart investment fundamentals that reinforce mathematics, reading and social studies skills.
- Teaching tools are workbooks, textbooks, research and quizzes on the dedicated webpage.
- Students record their weekly attendance and quarterly grades on the SIF website and check investments on personalized portfolio pages.
- Perfect weekly school attendance and improvements in mathematics and reading grades enables students to “earn” SIF dollars used to purchase publicly-traded company stocks.
- The potential earnings are $80 a year.
- Investments accumulate during three years. When ‘graduating’ from middle school, students continue tracking their portfolios on-line and can make stock trades once a year.
- When graduating from high school and turning eighteen, ownership of stock transfers to students’ names.
How Do I Earn Stock?
Perfect attendance including the SIF class
earns $1 each week.
Perfect attendance for an entire quarter,
earns $1 bonus.
Improving your reading grade earns $2.
Improving your math grade earns $2.
Reading grade at A or A- earns $3 or
$2 for a B+, B, or B-.
Math grade at A or A- earns $3 or
$2 for a B+, B, or B-.
Total Possible Earnings = $80
Total Possible
per Quarter
$8 to $10
(depending on the
number of weeks)
$1
$2
$2
$3
$3
Total Possible
per Year
$36
$4
$8
$8
$12
$12
Our History
To improve middle school student performances, Pat Bernstein approached Johns Hopkins University’s Center for the Social Organization of Schools (CSOS) in 2000 with the idea of creating an online program linking attendance and academic improvements with learning financial investment fundamentals. Targeting under-performing students in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades, they developed a three year curriculum incorporating learning business fundamentals, incentives for improvements in schools, and earning investment funding capabilities.
The pilot stage showed a high level of interest that produced desired results and encourage the program’s transition to an important supplemental opportunity. Its success showed an increasing number of student participation with stock purchases reflecting the students improved school performances. Teachers realize the educational benefits, and there is important simultaneous learning among families.
Initially, funding came from the Bernstein Family Foundation and was supplemented with corporate support. When becoming a nonprofit organization, contribution resources expanded. Foundations, corporations and individual funders sustain the momentum as a 501C.3 organization that resides at Johns Hopkins School of Education.
We extend our appreciation to Mrs. Bernstein and the Bernstein Family Foundation for initiating and orchestrating this program.
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Stocks in the Future? We are happy to share the successes of our partner schools and discuss what it takes to be a part of our program.