He concluded that interest in such courses was growing but that consumer courses were not available to all students without restriction. In addition he found that topics actually taught in class were frequently not related to objectives deemed important for the course.
Russon (61) found a similarity between predictive formulas for general college achievement and those for college achievement in business education. Using English and mathematics marks and high-school scholastic average, she produced a multiple R of .746.
Although there is insufficient space in this review for discussion, it should be noted that over 30 studies, many of them doctoral dissertations, were status studies of the business education programs of an individual state. The Maxwell study (47) is illustrative. Review of such studies could present a rather complete picture of the status of business education. The biennial census of the U.S. Office of Education (70) determined the total enrollment in business education classes as more than 60 per cent of the total pupil enrollment in the high schools. Typewriting, bookkeeping, and shorthand remained "the big three.".
Some shortcomings of the basic business program were uncovered by Jelley (31), whose study of understandings of money management by high school seniors revealed noticeable deficiencies in their knowledge of credit and life insurance.
One obvious way of strengthening the basic business program is for professional educators to devote more time and attention to basic business in the preservice preparation of high school business teachers. At least one timely study leads to this conclusion. Jones (34) discovered the following: a) Most high school business teachers prefer to teach the skill subjects rather than the basic business subjects. b) Undergraduate programs of business teacher education place greater emphasis upon preparation for teaching skill subjects than upon preparation for teaching basic business subjects.