First Kids Corp. : Junior Achievement Taking Business Plans to Inner City

As the chief executive of her own bank, Marisol Pineda became well-versed in the intricacies of saving and investing as well as evaluating loan requests.

It was a good bank, but it went out of business--not because of a restructuring of the financial marketplace or a merger offer from an expansion-minded competitor. The institution, called Marisol’s Bank, closed because the semester ended, explained Marisol, 9, a fourth-grader at Allesandro Elementary School near downtown Los Angeles.

“I was happy to be a bank because I was able to give people money for homes and things that they need,” said Marisol, an enthusiastic participant in Junior Achievement, the business-sponsored organization that brings practical economics into the classrooms at Allesandro and more than 350 other schools in Southern California.

Junior Achievement has been around for 77 capitalism-loving years, teaching young people the joys of entrepreneurship.

But this is not your father’s J.A. Junior Achievement is remaking itself to become more relevant to kids as young as 5 and to reach out to troubled and inner city youth, said James B. Hayes, Junior Achievement’s new president and chief executive, who was in Los Angeles on Friday to drum up corporate support for the program.

“Our kids are 25% of our population and 100% of our future,” said Hayes, who retired as publisher of Fortune magazine two years ago and last year took the helm of the Colorado Springs, Colo., organization after eight years as a director, including four as chairman.

Hayes speaks with missionary zeal about the problems facing young people: the high rates of crime, teen pregnancy and dropping out of school, the broken families, the drugs.

“Our children are in a state of crisis, and it is indeed time to panic,” Hayes said. “This is truly like a war, and it calls for a massive national commitment.

“I’m not about to suggest that Junior Achievement can solve all the problems facing young Americans. No one program can,” he said. But Junior Achievement is “a powerful way to reconnect kids . . . to the American dream.”

Junior Achievement has been forced to change to meet these needs of youth, Hayes said. Junior Achievement was founded in 1919 to establish after-school clubs that would concentrate on creating companies and turning out products so that young people could learn some of what it takes to run a business. But in recent years, Junior Achievement has pushed into the classroom--increasingly inner city classrooms--and now the after-school program involves only about 3% of the students served nationwide.

In Southern California, about 60% of the Junior Achievement classes are conducted in the inner city, said Gary W. Hickman, president of Junior Achievement of Southern California.

Junior Achievement can begin as early as kindergarten, said Hayes, who is a J.A. volunteer in a first-grade classroom in Colorado Springs. Junior Achievement volunteers follow a set curriculum for each grade level that concentrates on the practical aspects of business and economics, including the economic advantage of staying in school, what skills are needed to find a job and how to plan a budget.

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At Allesandro, a class of third-graders on Friday was trying to build a city by deciding what kinds of businesses would operate there. Junior Achievement volunteer Susan Campos led the students through a lesson that involved studying blueprints, measuring and multiplying, and ended as pupils built paper models of homes, apartments, banks, stores and the like. In future lessons, the pupils will plan a restaurant, put out a newspaper and run a bank.

“Did you enjoy doing this?” Campos asked.

“Yes!” replied a chorus of 21 voices.

Junior Achievement, which is funded primarily by businesses, has been growing rapidly. The program reached 1 million students during the 1988-89 school year, served 2 million in the 1994-95 school year and is projected to pass the 3-million-student mark at the end of the decade, Hayes said. In Southern California, the program will serve about 70,000 students this year, up from 64,000 nearly two years ago.

Junior Achievement has been franchised in 171 U.S. cities and 94 foreign countries, including Russia, where 260,000 young people participate annually, Hayes said.

Jackie Pacheco and Nelson Perez, seniors at Roosevelt High School, were introduced to Junior Achievement as part of their economics class.

“Junior Achievement really added a lot to my understanding of the business world,” Nelson said. “Before, when people talked about taxes or whatever, it just went over my head.”

Jackie said she now plans to major in business when she attends Cal State Los Angeles in September. “With Junior Achievement, it’s not like a textbook where they give it to you and say, ‘Here, do it,’ ” she said.

Marisol Pineda credits Junior Achievement with teaching her ways to save money, such as clipping coupons so that her family spends less at the supermarket. J.A. has given Marisol aspirations of becoming a clothing designer with her own company after she graduates from college. And she’s already picked out the name:

“It will be called Marisol Pineda’s Clothes Line.”