Business & Marketing Education Newsletter
New York State Education Department
March/April 2009 - Issue 67
NOW IS A GOOD TIME TO ADD THE BUSINESS HONOR SOCIETY
With the end of the school year fast approaching, the time to honor your business students will be upon us before we know it. In the past few weeks, the business and marketing education listserv has been alive with many questions about the honor society. Most of the questions focus on the timing of a ceremony and a pledge. Both issues have been addressed superbly on the listserv.
If you have not included the honor society as an integral part of your business program, I would encourage you to do so. It not only serves as an excellent way of recognizing the students in your program, it also serves as an invaluable public relations tool for your department.
For all you need to start the honor society in your district, go to www.btanys.org and click on the BMHS link.
BUSINESS & MARKETING EDUCATION LISTSERV
For those of you who would like to join our listserv, go to my web site and click on “Join Listserv”.
CHATTER ON THE LISTSERV- eClips
Cornell University’s Department of Applied Economics and Management has a wonderful site that can add a dose of reality to any business education classroom. The site, known as eClips
(http://eclips.cornell.edu) is advertised as Cornell’s premiere video clip collection. The 13,000 video clips available to you are on the subjects of entrepreneurship, business and leadership and best of all they are all available free of charge.
For more information on eClips, contact Jamie Kalousdian at djk37@cornell.edu
NY FINANCIAL LITERACY FORUM
On May 4, 2009 at the Hofstra University Student Theatre, a NY Financial Literacy Forum will be held from 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Registration for the forum is free but space is limited. To register, call 516-802-4192 by April 30, 2009. Leaders in education, business and policy making will discuss how financial literacy should be taught in our State’s schools. Former BTA President Marsha Iverson from Hofstra University is one of the panelists. For more on the forum, go to www.nyfinancialliteracy.com
MARK YOUR CALENDARS
The NYS Credit Union Foundation has announced their summer in-service sessions. The days will run from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. and will consist of two workshops. The morning session will focus on the NEFE High School Financial Planning Program. The afternoon session will be about the CARE Program or the Credit Abuse Resistance Education program (www.careprogram.us). Both have been written about in this newsletter on many occasions. The dates are:
Oneonta
July 14, 2009
SUNY Oneonta
NYC
July 16, 2009
Municipal Credit Union
Long Island - Nassau County
July 21, 2009
Nassau Educators FCU, Westbury
Capital District
July 23, 2009
Questar BOCES Administrative Headquarters, Castleton
Syracuse
July 28, 2009
Empower FCU
Buffalo
July 30, 2009
Orchard Park FCU
To register, go to www.nycuf.org and click on the “NEFE” logo on the homepage.
TEACHER’S FINANCIAL LITERACY TRAINING- MAY 5
In addition to the above mentioned workshops, a NEFE HS Financial Planning training session will be held on May 5 at Rockland Community College – Student Union Building, Room 3214 from 5pm – 8pm. Training is free of charge and is eligible for CE credits. To register, email your contact info to eandt@cuany.org. For questions, call the Member Services hotline at 800-342-9835, ext. 8546.
2009 LIFESMARTS RESULTS
Once again, the 2009 Lifesmarts competition was an exciting one. Here are the results:
1st Place Saranac Lake HS
2nd Place Starpoint HS
3rd Place Irondequoit HS
4th Place Pittsford Mendon HS
5th Place Fairport HS
6th Place Pembroke HS
7th Place William Floyd HS
8th Place Cairo – Durham HS
9th Place Tonawanda HS
10th Place Brentwood HS & Torah Academy of Brooklyn
11th Place Sachem HS
Congratulations to all the students and advisors who participated.
MONEYSKILL.ORG
I have been notified by the good folks at the AFSA Education Foundation that they have made recent changes to the MoneySKILL curriculum designed for high school students. The changes became active on March 13. For those teachers who do not know about Moneyskill, Moneyskill is a free online personal finance course and has been a part of several BTA conferences.
OAKLAND BASEBALL SIMWORLD
Laura Robinson from Webutuck HS had inquired about a sports business simulation that she had found on the web on our listserv. I don’t think many business teachers besides Laura had knowledge of such a simulation.
Developed by Sports Business Simulations, information about this particular simulation can be found at www.sportsbusinesssims.com/student.htm
What I found to be useful to all teachers would be their list of resources. I have included some of them below:
- Book Resources - SBS recommends the following books for the class, and to be used in conjunction with the simulation:
- "Pay Dirt" - By Professor Rod Fort: A Book on The Economics of The Sports Franchise
- "May The Best Team Win" - By Professor Andrew Zimbalist: A book on baseball franchise operations. More of a critique than a "how-to"
- "The Fifth Discpline" - By Peter Senge: A book which is a primer for systems thinking, and essential for the proper use of the sim in a class
- "The Art of The Long View" - By Peter Schwartz: This book presents the art of scenario planning. It also a great companion to The Fifth Discpline, in that it opens you to the idea of thinking about long-term outcomes of short term decisions. The very focus of the Oakland Baseball Simworld.
- "Taking on The Yankees: Winning and Losing In The Business of Baseball, 1903 to 2003" - By Henry Fetter: This book gives a great "who said what to whom" view of the business of the NY Yankees. It's perfect as an economic history, and you will find situations in this book actually played out in the sim.
- "MoneyBall" - By Michael Lewis: This now famous book presents the unique player development strategy and politics of the Oakland Athletics. This book provides a personal, eye-level view of the player development aspect of a successful organization.
- "Sports Business Journal" - By Street & Smith: Considered the "sports business bible" by some, this weekly publication gives an in-depth presentation of sports industry news and issues.
- Web site Resources - SBS recommends the following
Sports Business Journal:
A valuable and widely-read resource of weekly information on breaking business news in the sports industry. Considered the weekly sports business "bible."
The Official Web Site of the Oakland Athletics:
The Internet home of the organization that is the basis for our Oakland Baseball Simworld.
The Oakland Athletics provide a great platform for the study of how various business models can impact the performance (on and off the field) of a baseball organization. The Athletics are generally regarded as the best example of the "efficient baseball organization" obtaining optimum performance with far less revenue compared to many of its competitor firms.
CONGRATULATIONS TO ARLINGTON HS BUSINESS TEACHERS
On April 3, 2009, the Poughkeepsie Journal wrote about John Timm’s and Darrell Flynn’s Personal Money Management class. http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20090403/BUSINESS/904030326
In the article John states, “ What we’re trying to do is bring on financial awareness at a young age. We found that during open houses, we get a lot of parents sitting there saying, “Where was this when I was 17 years old?”
I don’t believe that the parents of children in the Arlington district are that much different than the parents in other districts throughout New York. Given a chance to graduate a son or daughter who is more financially literate than they were at that same age, parents will jump at the chance.
Now would be a great time to have this discussion with your colleagues, parents, and administrators.
BTA FALL 2009 CONFERENCE
The 57th Annual Business Teacher’s conference will be held on October 15 & 16 in Rochester, NY. If you are able to attend only one conference all year, this would be the one I would recommend. Possible sessions on Alice, Gen Y Motivational Tools, Podcasting, the Gaming Curriculum, Virtual Finance, Organizing a Career Sports Day, etc…. are all in the works.
For more information, go to www.btanys.org
BUSINESS ED STUDENT AWARDS DINNER
The BMEA of the Capital District and the Adirondack BTA have teamed up for the 16th Annual Outstanding Business Education Student awards dinner. Each year, students in the school districts in and around the Albany/Saratoga area’s are recognized at an annual dinner for being the outstanding business student in the school.
Not only is this a great way of recognizing an outstanding business student, it is a great way of promoting business and marketing education. Just think of how many business students who have been recognized have gone on to become successful college students, employers and employees. Every one will speak highly about the business education program at the school they attended.
For more information about how to get an event like this planned in your area, contact Rich Heim at rheim@ncolonie.org
BTANYS REGION 10 MINI-CONFERENCE
JoAnne Ryan (Joanne_Ryan@eaur.wnyric.org) is organizing for the second consecutive year, a Spring mini-conference for business teachers in western NY. The workshop is on May 14 at Daemen College from 4:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. Contact JoAnne for workshop agenda and registration form.
SALARY OFFERS TO COLLEGE CLASS OF 2009 DIP- BUSINESS HOLDS
Here’s a piece of information that you would want your students and parents to know. Some bad news for students graduating from college but good news for those graduating with business degrees.
Starting salary offers to the college Class of 2009 have fallen slightly compared to offers received by the Class of 2008, according to new report from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE).According to the Spring 2009 issue of NACE’s Salary Survey report, the overall average offer to a 2009 bachelor’s degree graduate stands at $48,515—down 2.2 percent from the average of $49,624 posted in Spring 2008. “This report illustrates the effects the recession is having on the job market for new college graduates. The decrease in average offer is one sign that demand is down,” says Marilyn Mackes, NACE executive director.
The business disciplines appear to be holding their own; as a group, their average offer rose 1 percent to $46,973, and some of the individual disciplines saw modest increases in their average salary offers. For example, the average salary offer to those earning degrees in accounting rose 2 percent to $48,377, while finance graduates saw their average offer rise 2.3 percent to $49,754. Business administration/management graduates fared well in comparison, posting a 3.6 percent increase for an average offer of $45,778.