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Economics can helpSitting in a semicircle around their teacher, Gerri Kimble, students at Hoover High School near Birmingham, Alabama ponder a high schooler dilemma: What to do with their part-time job paychecks.These teens say they're buying loaded teas, filling the gas tank — and investing."I put it in index funds, like S&P and then QQQ and VOO," says junior Darshan Parmar.
Kimble asks if his parents do the actual investing.Parmar says he does it himself.One student puts 70 percent in his Roth IRA.
Another contributes to a 401(k).A third says he invests directly in stocks."Oh you watch the markets?" Kimble asks.
"Love it."These students are among the first in the country to take a newly created Advanced Placement Business with Personal Finance course.The class is offered for the first time this year at more than 1,500 high schools across the country.AP courses are college level classes offered in high school.
Enrolled students can take an exam in order to earn college credit.Typically, these credits are for canonical subjects like English, history and chemistry.Students at Hoover High School's AP business class however get lessons on management and finances.
They learn about the outside factors that can make or break a business – political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal."It's a foundational piece of business that we're learning," says senior Bramley Williams."Business is the constant learning of adaptation," says David Coleman, CEO of the College Board, the organization that creates and develops advanced placement courses for public and private schools across the country.The group also manages and administers the SAT.
It created this business course because students said in AP surveys that they want to turn their ideas into jobs.The class is designed to appeal to students who might be drawn to a more practical curriculum than a more theoretical subject such a...