An MBA for Kids: The Minnesota Business Academy

[7 January 2003 - Edutopia] At this school, curriculum revolves around the workplace's demands for knowledge and critical-thinking skills. ... Teachers who care and assignments that have real-world applications are attracting students to the Minnesota Business Academy, one of the state's most unusual public charter schools. Opened in 2000 in the renovated former Science Museum of Minnesota, in downtown St. Paul, the high school known as MBA boasts a technology-oriented, project-based curriculum that incorporates a business element in everything from art to English. "Every school should make the curriculum more practical," says Bob Kaitz, president and chief executive officer of BestPrep, the philanthropic state business group that helped MBA become a reality. "A lot of kids don't do well in school because they don't see a connection between what they're studying and what they're going to do." More