Business at Hand: 600 Area Students to Turn Convention Center into 'Market Madness' Zone

When taught via principles and theories, economics historically has been so discouraging as to earn the moniker "the dismal science." There will be nothing dismal, however, about a large-scale, hands-on experiment in economics for more than 600 area students at the Cincinnati Convention Center on Wednesday, April 30.

The students will be participating in "Market Madness 2003," an exercise in free-market economics and the entrepreneurial spirit being coordinated by UC’s Economics Center for Education & Research.

The students will be bringing their own goods created during the school year as each school participated in the Student Enterprise Program (StEP). At Market Madness, those goods will be made available for trade, with students able to convert currencies created at their home school for a common Market Madness currency. Students will set prices, establish market rules, advertise their wares, negotiate trades, account for their profits and learn many new ideas.

The trading session at Market Madness is scheduled to run from 11:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. The program will open at 10 a.m., with a panel discussion preceding the trading session. Students will talk about their experiences in StEP. They will also interact with a panel of experts from a variety of backgrounds, headed by Barbara Henshaw, Vice President and Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.

This real-world approach to economics has been shown through the 25-year history of UC’s Economics Center for Education & Research to open the door to not just economic education, but improved performance in all educational areas. Achievement scores and attendance go up in schools participating in the StEP program.

As part of the StEP program, each school has already created its own functioning society where students hold jobs, create a school-based currency, earn wages, form their own government, spend and invest school currency, create marketplaces and form student-run ventures in fields as varied as performing arts to manufacturing.

At some point in the school day, teachers dismiss their students to "go to work." Hallways fill with hundreds of students walking purposefully along the "sidewalks" of their city as they get busy in classrooms that have been transformed into small businesses, museums, banks, law offices, craft stores, radio stations, and many other ventures.

StEP literally imposes a new instructional system onto a portion of the school day. Teachers and students congregate by choice of activity, not by age or grade level. StEP changes schooling from what is often a relatively passive experience to one that gives the child responsibility for innovating-choosing a company to work for and a job within the company; choosing a project, team or product and choosing what to do with earned wages.

As they operate their market economy and their democratic civil society, students constantly apply basic skills in reading, writing, and mathematics. In a StEP school, math means making the correct change, calculating a new price for a product that is selling well, debating if a cookie is worth the price, borrowing money for a theatre ticket, counting stacks of inventory, paying a police ticket, or buying supplies from a warehouse. There are similar reasons every day to read and write: a contract for advertising needs to be drawn up between the newspaper and the art gallery; museum docents need written text describing exhibits on the tour; the government wants the laws posted for all citizens; a judge needs jury subpoenas designed and delivered; the bookstore hosts a read-a-thon; a letter inviting a real policeman to school needs writing.

The StEP program develops opportunities for dialogue between educators and community leaders, with schools regularly inviting community members and parents to participate. For example, a local banker's visit to improve efficiencies in a StEP bank is needed so the student managers can better serve the entire school population's use of in-school checkbooks, automatic payroll, savings accounts, and loans. Opening the doors to community involvement often means that changes in the school are now directed, in part, by influences from the school "market" of parents, students, and the community.