N.J. Businesses Take Message Into Classrooms

Alarmed that so many young people lack the skills to excel at work, the business community has been using summits, papers, and political alliances to urge stronger preparation for adolescents. But in New Jersey, businesses have taken their ideas from the bully pulpit straight into classrooms.

Sixty-five schools are using all or part of a program designed jointly by business leaders and educators to help more students master the skills employers say are crucial, such as computer proficiency, critical thinking, and a solid work ethic. Certificates of completion in each of the program’s Web-based modules give students bragging rights to those skills in job interviews or on college applications.

The LearnDoEarn program—shorthand for Learn More Now, Do More Now, Earn More Later—has been boosting enrollment in mathematics, science, and economics courses in New Jersey pilot schools for the past four years and is beginning...