Throughout Monica Goldson’s 32 years of service at Maryland’s Prince George’s County public colleges, the place she began as a highschool math instructor and rose to chief government officer, she grew bored with listening to college students ask the query: Why am I studying this?
In response, Goldson sought methods to hyperlink studying to real-world experiences. She performed a pivotal position in forging a partnership between the 133,000-student district and JA Finance Park, a capstone expertise of the nonprofit Junior Achievement for center faculty college students that simulates the grownup world of labor and monetary accountability. Her involvement on this partnership proved prescient.
This fall, Junior Achievement of Larger Washington chosen Goldson to function its subsequent CEO and president. In succeeding the three-decade tenure of former head Ed Grenier, Goldson grew to become the primary Black girl within the regional group’s historical past to carry the place.
Training Week caught up with Goldson to seek out out extra in regards to the work of Junior Achievement to provide college students real-world experiences, why it felt like a pure transition for her, and what early statistics reveal about this system’s affect on teen contributors.
The interview has been edited for size and readability.
You retired from Prince George’s County colleges on the finish of the 2022-23 faculty yr. In October 2024, you accepted the place of CEO and president of the Junior Achievement of Larger Washington. Why not simply slide into retirement and calm down?
Training has at all times been my ardour, and the work has by no means been about simply having a job. It truly is about making an impression. I nonetheless reside in the identical neighborhood that I served for 32 years, and after being off for a year-and-a-half after retiring, I nonetheless felt the necessity to give again. And Junior Achievement was a kind of organizations that I supported and really fell in love with after I was chief of operations at Prince George’s.
What hooked you on Junior Achievement?
Properly, if we actually hearken to what college students are saying to us—particularly after they say, “Why do I’ve to study this?”—then we all know that we have now to do one thing totally different in how we educate them. Junior Achievement immediately addresses this disconnect by bringing in real-world experiences into the classroom.
Junior Achievement companions with firms which are keen to share their experience in regards to the world of labor with college students. What are you listening to from these enterprise companions in regards to the expertise that can make college students “workforce prepared?”
There’s quite a lot of speak about mushy expertise, what I prefer to name “energy” expertise. These embody issues like working in teams, team-building, collaboration, the power to create a PowerPoint after which to execute that PowerPoint presentation, flexibility, adaptability—all these expertise that we (professionals) generally take as a right as a result of we’ve been on this planet of labor for therefore lengthy.
It’s these expertise that we wish to be certain are built-in into the classroom expertise that college students can then switch over into the work surroundings.
College students can take part in Junior Achievement as early as center faculty, proper?
That’s proper. Within the three largest faculty districts in our space—Prince George’s County, Montgomery County, and Fairfax County public colleges—seventh or eighth grade college students go to JA Finance Park for a day, the place each scholar is given a persona. They might be single dad and mom, they might be married, they may have children, they could not have children. They get handed down a job with a selected revenue.
Based mostly on their private {and professional} conditions, college students should navigate making monetary choices equivalent to housing, transportation, paying payments, creating financial savings, coping with debt. The aim is to depart on the finish of that have within the black, with some financial savings.
This have to be eye-opening for center faculty college students.
Sure! There are occasions the place college students’ personas problem them, they usually’ll say issues like, “Hey, I don’t need any extra children as a result of they’re costly. Can I give my children again?”
And the reply is: “No, you can’t. Your dad and mom can’t offer you again, and we will’t offer you again.”
What preparation do college students obtain earlier than attending JA Finance Park?
College students full a classroom curriculum that covers budgeting, credit score, financial savings, and decisionmaking earlier than they go to the finance park, the place they get to use the whole lot they discovered in school via these real-world simulations.
Does Junior Achievement supply any private finance training past center faculty?
Junior Achievement presents course content material for any district that desires to supply monetary literacy as a commencement requirement. Prince George’s County is a good instance of that. Each certainly one of their highschool college students now should earn a half a credit score of monetary literacy with the intention to graduate. The District of Columbia is transferring in that course as nicely.
College students whose colleges take part in Junior Achievement expertise its marquee highschool program, 3DE. Inform me about that.
It’s an tutorial mannequin that actually transforms highschool training by integrating real-world challenges from precise companies and organizations into college students’ day by day studying; some notable company companions embody Arby’s, Deloitte, Truist, and the House Depot.
These case challenges begin in grade 9 and proceed for 4 years. As college students have interaction in case-based studying, they clear up real-world enterprise issues, working collaboratively and presenting their options in competitions earlier than a panel of judges.
How does 3DE match into the highschool curriculum? Is it an elective?
It really matches into the prevailing curriculum. So for instance, in grade 9, college students get a complete of six case challenges which are interdisciplinary, that means they combine with a number of tutorial topics and are tailor-made to every faculty district’s necessities.
A enterprise data-related problem may lean extra closely on math and economics, whereas a sustainability problem might draw extra round connections to science and environmental research.
Are you able to share a memorable successful competitors?
College students from West Forsyth Excessive College in Cumming, Ga., received the House Depot Nationwide Case Competitors, a 3DE Colleges occasion that challenged college students from 35 colleges throughout the nation to increase House Depot’s DIY buyer base by creating an progressive purchasing expertise specializing in one of many House Depot’s best-selling departments.
The winners proposed including a show of renter-friendly gadgets like peel-and-stick flooring, backsplashes, and wallpaper. In addition they urged selling this stuff by way of social media collaborations with DIY influencers to focus on a brand new buyer base.
What do the successful rivals obtain?
They get a trophy, they usually get bragging rights. Quite a lot of occasions, in addition they get to see the fruits of their labor. Firms really execute college students’ options, which then implies that their voice issues, they usually can see how they play a job of their neighborhood.
Anecdotally, it seems like Junior Achievement helps college students achieve real-world experiences. Do you may have any knowledge to assist these success tales?
We simply bought our first set of knowledge factors. They replicate statistics primarily based on a cohort of scholars from Potomac Excessive College and Surrattsville Excessive College in Clinton, MD.who accomplished 4 years of the Junior Achievement program, from ninth via twelfth grades.
We noticed there was a 24 p.c discount in continual absenteeism, which is superb, a 25 p.c enhance in commencement price, a 30 p.c larger price in first-generation faculty enrollment, a 35 p.c enhance in college students having a sense of a way of belonging, and 100% of employees members—principal and lecturers—agreeing that they’d suggest this program to their colleagues. That’s huge.
What do you see as essentially the most thrilling takeaway?
The drop in continual absenteeism is critical. I consider it got here from college students beginning to have this dedication to the opposite members of their group.
In addition they realized that going to class was greater than studying one thing from a textbook. They had been excited to return into class to work on their tasks. Some did surveys for his or her tasks, they usually had been excited to get the outcomes again. Total, they felt like they had been working in an organization.
There was that sense of belonging that makes them wish to be in school.
