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What We Do

Promoting and enhancing economic education in our schools since 1983

• Awards Competition rewarding teachers for outstanding commitment to the instruction of economics.
  2007 Awards
   All Awards

• Mini-Society® Teacher Training and GEM Fair

• Stock Market Game® with Program Help, and the SMG Awards Reception

• Teacher Outreach to increase the reach of economic programs

• How you can help! Get involved, contribute time and money
Why Economic Education? PDF Print E-mail
Surveys by the National Council on Economic Education show that nearly half of our young people don't understand how to save and invest for retirement or how to handle credit cards. They don't know the difference between inflation and recession or how government spending affects them.

If we fail to act now to improve economic literacy in this country, our children will be at risk for crippling personal debt, costly decisions at work and at home, and lack competitive skills in a fast-paced global economy.

1.    In Virginia there are Standards of Learning with economic content at all levels.

2.    Many teachers find themselves unprepared to teach economic content with a high level of confidence.

3.    Shenandoah Valley Economic Education, Inc., helps overcome barriers to economics instruction in area schools: lack of materials, lack of training, and misconceptions about the nature and subject matter of economics.

4.    SVEE directly serves the Harrisonburg and Rockingham County schools, with a combined total of approximately 15,000 students: four high schools, five middle schools, 17 elementary schools and a technical center.

5.    SVEE provides teacher training coordinated with the Virginia Standards of Learning through the James Madison University Center for Economic Education. The JMU Center conducts workshops and a program of individual consultation to help teachers become more effective in teaching economic content.

6.    Through the JMU Center, SVEE promotes effective use of nationally recognized economic simulations and activities such as The Stock Market Game and the Mini-Society.

7.    In economic education circles, SVEE’s structure of private fund-raising to support teacher consultation at a University-based Center for Economic Education is considered a model for the rest of the country because of the stability of programming that it supports and because of the national recognition that has gone to the SVEE-funded program.

8.    Harrisonburg-Rockingham area teachers are perennial winners of state competitions, receiving five of the six statewide awards for economic education units presented by the Virginia Council on Economic Education in 2005.

9.    With the advantages of SVEE funding, the JMU Center for Economic Education has achieved national prominence and a Top 20 ranking in economic education research productivity. Because of combined JMU and SVEE resources, the Center has been able to attract to its staff a nationally known economic educator (William C. Wood), a former president of the Virginia Council on Economic Education (Joan L. Spence) and a published author of library and economics lessons (Lynne F. Stover).

10.    With the help of SVEE funding, the JMU Center for Economic Education has achieved the highest level of national accreditation from the National Council on Economic Education. JMU Center staff have been sought out to serve as authors of NCEE materials.

11.    An endowment built with major contributions from Zane Showker, Charles Strickler and Senator Harry F. Byrd, Jr. has enabled SVEE to fund its basic program. Additional building of the endowment can assure a high degree of excellence for years to come.

You can help: through your tax deductible contribution