Georgia's economic education programs [1977]

GEORGIA'S ECONOMIC EDUCATION PROGRAMS
Following is a description of Georgia's efforts to eliminate economic illiteracy and to focus on the dire need for our citizens to understand the American system of competitive "Free Enterprise" before it is too late.

THE PROBLEM
Our Founding Fathers knew that only an informed and educated electorate could preserve the Republic that they established as our heritage, yet we have spurned their wisdom. Over 90% of our high schools do not require a course in economics as a prerequisite for graduation and most do not even offer a course in economics in their curriculum. If a survey conducted in Virginia is typical, only 2% of the school teachers across the nation have taken courses in economics. Our schools, therefore, are turning out generation after generation of "economic illiterates" who are filled with misconceptions and misunderstandings about our free society. As a result, most Americans are totally ignorant of the fact that the very foundation of all of our freedoms - whether they be political, religious or academic - is our "Free Enterprise" system.
The spending of the public sector now accounts for 40% of our gross national product and its swarms of bureaucrats have moved into almost every area of our economic lives. When "Big Government" absorbs our "Free Enterprise" system, our other freedoms cannot survive for long. Why? Because when a government controls its citizens' means of making a living, it assumes control over all other aspects of their lives.
The platforms of our political parties are philosophically based on economics. How, then, can our voters be expected to evaluate the issues and vote intelligently if they are "economicaIly illiterate"? An uninformed or misinformed public is a very real danger to the preservation of our freedom in the United States.
WHAT'S WRONG WITH AMERICA? .
The attack on our American Free Enterprise System has been mounting for years, ignoring the fact that the competitive American system of unregulated private ownership and free markets has proven itself to provide more opportunities, more individual liberties and higher standards of living at every level of society than any other political or economic system man has yet devised. It is not perfect, but it is far superior to the second best.
This constant barrage of criticism - of what's wrong with America - has created an alarming erosion of confidence in all the institutions of our free society simply because most Americans do not understand what makes our free economy work so well. They have no solid understanding of the role of profits and savings in providing the tools and machinery of production which gives all of us higher living standards; how competition provides us with better products and services at lower and lower prices for consumers; how workers receive $9
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in pay for each $1 that goes to profit; how minimal after-tax profits of businesses really are and getting lower year after year; how a free market economy is self-regulating to meet the laws of supply and demand whereas a controlled market economy with its price controls and expensive bureaucratic regulations invariably will restrict supply, increase demand, and create shortages (the current natural gas shortage is a typical example); how government deficit-spending creates inflation which erodes the purchasing power of the dollar and hurts everyone; how we cannot all live off the government because the only way the government can live is off us.
ECONOMIC EDUCATION IN GEORGIA
The rationale we used in Georgia is that since most high school and college graduates have had no formal education in economics, special programs had to be developed to reach employees, housewives and other adults. Our primary market, however, was to reach our young people who are still in school. But who would teach economic courses to the students when 98% of the teachers themselves have never been exposed to economic courses?
Thus, two organizations were established, one to serve the needs of the academic community, the other to reach those beyond the scope of our schools and colleges. Although the two organizationsaJ;~..separateand independent, they coordinate their efforts and lend assistance to each other whenever needed to achieve their respective objectives.
THE GEORGIA COUNCIL ON ECONOMIC EDUCATION
The academically-oriented organization is the Georgia Council on Economic Education, which operates as an independent unit but is under the auspices of the Joint Council on Economic Education, which is based in New York. The Georgia Council is locally funded and its Directors are drawn from Georgia business - education - labor - agriculture - and government. It was founded in 1972 and initially underwritten by the Citizens and Southern National Bank. An Executive Director was selected, using Georgia State University as a base of operation. His primary responsibility is to build economics into existing school curricula at all grade levels and to improve primary and secondary teachers' preparation in economics with the ultimate aim of making certain that every child who graduates from a Georgia school has been taught the fundamentals of economics in a free society so that he may face political, economic and social issues without the misconceptions that cloud the judgment of so many Americans today.
To date "Economic Education Centers" have been established on seven campuses around the state, each having a full-time
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Director. It is hoped that two others - in the Macon and Columbus areas - can be installed this year. The record is as follows:
Augusta College - Center established 1974, 3 workshops held, attended by 84 teachers.
Berry College - Center established 1974, 2 workshops held, attended by 58 teachers.
Georgia Southern - Center established 1972, 6 workshops held, attended by 150 teachers.
Georgi.a State - Center established 1963 (predated Georgia CouncIl), 4 workshops held, attended by 100 teachers since Council affiliation.
University of Georgia - Center established 1976, 4 workshops held, attended by 75 teachers.
Valdosta State - Center established 1972, 4 workshops held, attended by 80 teachers.
West Georgia - Center established 1972, 8 workshops held, attended by 120 teachers.
Special workshops - non-Center, reached 125 teachers in 1976.
A total of 792 teachers have attended workshops for credit with 30,000 hours of economic instruction, plus more than 200 teachers in non-credit courses. Our expectancy is that these teachers will project a favorable image of the American Private Enterprise System to untold thousands of students down through the years as a result of their experience.
This is truly a cooperative program with the participating colleges. Each college has a Director from the faculty and furnishes secretarial services and facilities for the workshops. The seven colleges which operate our Centers and conduct these summer workshops spent a total of $64,050 on them in 1976. This is in addition to the tuition of the teachers paid by the Council and the consultative help and materials which the Georgia Council furnished.
Thirty-three business firms, foundations and individuals contributed to the Council last year, but since the State Board of Education has mandated a course in free enterprise economics as a prerequisite for high school graduation and a major effort is being made to inject economics into the curriculum of elementary schools in our 188 school systems, our fund-raising campaign is beamed at securing contributions from more than
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100 firms and the major unions for our projected budget of $300,000 for the next three years so we can adequately train the teachers to teach the courses. All contributions are, of course, tax-exempt.
GEORGIA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE ECONOMIC EDUCAnON COMMITTEE
The other vehicle is the Economic Education Committee of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce. It is composed of businessmen and educators. The committee was activated in 1973, and its activities have been highlighted by the following projects:
I. A Professor-Businessman Exchange Program was inaugurated whereby a professor spends 4-6 weeks in a company and, in turn, an executive from the company spends 2-4 weeks at the professor's college. Approximately 20 exchanges have been consummated to date.
2. A stable of 50-75 speakers on "Free Enterprise" have volunteered to be available to lecture in the Economic Education Centers, and to speak in classes, schools, civic clubs, etc.
3. A "Business Executive-College Student" forum on campuses was developed with 3-5 executives spending 1 \12-2 hours as a panel replying to questions asked by faculty and students in assembly-type gatherings and explaining how businesses operate. A number of these have been conducted, some with most encouraging results while others have been quite disappointing.
4. An "In-Company Economic Education" workshop was designed for in-company use and turned over to the "Employer-Employee Relations Committee" of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce for dissemination at local Chamber of Commerce meetings for their members.
5. A 14-minute movie entitled "Free Enterprise" was produced by Warner Brothers to show in schools, on TV, in civic clubs and other meetings, etc., with 150 prints available. Ten prints have been given to the State's Industrial Arts Department with the assurance that the movie will be shown to 160,000 Industrial Arts students. Six prints are being used in the Distributive Education Department. "Free Enterprise" is known to have been shown in at least 27 states.
6. Approximately 450 teaching kits, "Economics for Young Americans," were developed for the United States Chamber of Commerce and have been distributed to practically all school districts in the State.
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7. Three "Free Enterprise" seminars put on by the Foundation for Economic Education have been sponsored around the State for teachers, professors and businessmen.
8. A movement to call a Constitutional Convention to require the federal government to live within its revenues has been publicized in the other 49 states. Twelve states have now passed such legislation.
9. As a joint effort of the Georgia Council on Economic Education and the Georgia Chamber of Commerce Economic Education Committee, a 20-hour course with graduate credit was developed for primary and high school teachers, using businessmen as lecturers in each session, which is held once a week in the late afternoon for the convenience of teachers. We refer to this as the "Continental Can Project" because they conceived the idea and sponsored our pilot program.
AGAIN . .. WHAT'S WRONG WITH AMERICA?
In recent years our success and affluency have lulled us into a lack of appreciation - and in many cases - a lack of understanding of the basic reasons for the miracle of America. In 200 years our country has grown from an uncharted wilderness to the most powerful, wealthiest, most generous nation the world has yet seen, where even the underpriviledged have higher standards of living than the upper classes of most of the other countries on Planet Earth.
Our belief is that this end result is due to the fact that the United States was founded on a system of checks and balances that guaranteed freedom by limiting the power of government. Our forefathers possessed an independence of spirit which produced men and women of strong character and principles; men and women who took pride in hard work and productivity; who knew right from wrong and believed in thrift and honesty; who believed in religion and education; and who felt a personal responsibility to help the needy and the underpriviledged. Believing that these are the values which made our nation great, our objective is to impart these values to our young Georgians and to our adult citizens as well.
MARCH 1977
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