[ribbon]How Stocks in the Future began[/ribbon]
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.