Junior achievement Alaska marks 40 years: business education project changing to meet today's bottom line.

• Position: SPECIAL SECTION: Junior Achievement

As Junior Achievement celebrates this milestone anniversary, here is a look at the impact the organization has had on students, educators, and the business community over the past 40 years.

Connecting Students with Learning

JA has served an estimated 300,000 K-12 students in Alaska over its 40 year history, impacting schools and classrooms statewide. During the 2011-12 school year, JA reached schools in 43 communities with support from businesses and volunteers.

JA's programs are routinely updated to keep the material current and cutting edge. To this end, over the past five years more than 96 percent of JA's programs have undergone comprehensive evaluations to assess their effectiveness and impact. As a result, according to 60 third-party evaluations, students who have participated in Junior Achievement developed the skills they needed to be successful in the global market-place.

In addition, Junior Achievement reinforces the value of an education. In recent high school program evaluations, an average of eight out of 10 students reported that Junior Achievement helped them see the importance of staying in school.

More than nine out of 10 teachers and volunteers, 91 percent agree or strongly agree that Junior Achievement programs connect what is learned in the classroom to the outside world.

"Through my participation in JA, I discovered that if you want to be a successful business woman or man you have to stay focused and stay in school so you can become what you want to become," a JA Job Shadow student says.

JA has a plan to continue to build on this track record of success. With the support of the business community, volunteers and schools, JA is on track to reach 10,000 students during the 2014-15 school year.

Helping Educators Achieve Goals

Educators are tasked daily with molding the minds of tomorrow's leaders. This is challenging for many reasons, including the pressure to meet curriculum standards and benchmarks, a transient student population, and a renewed call from the community to help students graduate from high school. JA has positioned itself as a resource to help educators address these challenges.

All of JA's lessons correlate to Alaska State Learning standards and are designed to help educators meet benchmarks. Additionally, many of the topics covered in JA's lessons are not covered anywhere else in required courses for students such as ethics, taxation, insurance and budgeting.

Alaska's transient population makes it...