How do we inspire kids at a young age about the possibilities to change the world through social entrepreneurship? How can we use business to solve a social problem, benefit the community, and make a difference in the racial student achievement gap?
Lifelong educator Dr. Roxie Hentz aims to answer those questions with her creation of her CEOs of Tomorrow, LLC that she launched earlier this year.
“It truly is a combination of what I’ve been doing for my life and narrowed in on one specific topic,” Hentz tells Madison365. “It’s not necessarily new for me, but it’s new for Madison. It’s something that can have a huge academic impact on kids and will level the playing field. It’s something that can have a long-term impact on kids and families as the kids grow up with these skills.”
CEOs of Tomorrow, LLC develops hands-on, interactive, and vibrant entrepreneurship education curriculum aligned to math, literacy, entrepreneurship, and 21st century standards. Through camps and courses, young innovators and problem solvers are inspired to shape and influence their world through social entrepreneurship.
“The focus is on social entrepreneurship education, meaning kids learn how to run real businesses for the purpose of solving social issues or benefiting the community,” Hentz says. “With it, they also learn important business skills.”
CEOs of Tomorrow offers engaging experiential and interdisciplinary social entrepreneurship education workshops and courses where youth innovators and problem solvers are inspired to shape and influence their world through business-like ventures that address today’s social issues.
“The workshops are all hands on and engaging and they focus on profit and mission,” Hentz says. “It’s not enough, in my opinion, to teach kids how to have a business, but to teach them how to somehow really make a difference and to change lives — not only theirs but those that they touch.”
Hentz has a bachelor’s degree in education from Marquette University and a master’s of business administration from Cardinal Stritch University. She also earned her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) at Cardinal Stritch University in Leadership for the Advancement of Learning and Service. Her dissertation title was “In Search of Greatness: Growing Revenue to Sustain the Mission.”
Because of Hentz’s own extensive background in academia, the entire curriculum has been academically aligned to math, reading, and entrepreneurship standards. “We have a heavy focus on financial literacy through managing business finances. And, of course, teaching life skills,” she says.
All told, Hentz has been involved in education for 25 years. She started as a teacher at Lee Elementary School in the heart of inner-city Milwaukee.
“What I learned is that my students outperformed city and suburban schools year after year after year and it was an integration of real life experiential learning,” she says.
At age 25, Hentz started a non-profit for kids ages 8-14 that focused on immersing the young people in non-traditional experiences. For 17 years as the founding executive director of Teen Approach, Inc., she led young urban children to new worlds through the implementation of innovative programs that promoted early health, social, and entrepreneurial education.
“Eight year olds wrote grants and secured grant funds. My middle school students had paid internships at educator’s credit unions. You’d walk in and a sixth grader would be the teller at the drive-thru,” Hentz remembers. “They would also run businesses. All the while, we were teaching them life skills.”
Meanwhile, as an educator in Milwaukee Public Schools, Hentz did a lot of work with closing the racial achievement gap where she designed and implemented the district’s first formalized culturally responsive teaching (CRT) framework. “When I left Milwaukee Public Schools, I was the culturally responsive teacher leader for the District,” Hentz says. “I was training teachers to address the racial achievement gap and using rigor and relevance together to teach all kids – particularly children of color.”
When Hentz came to Madison, she worked in Title I in the Department of Public Instruction. “Title I provides funding and support to schools based upon student poverty levels. My biggest footprint there was working the racial achievement gap,” she says. “You may be aware that the Department of Instruction two years ago under Dr. Tony Evers launched ‘Promoting Excellence For All’ with a focus on the racial gap here in Wisconsin … calling it out and naming what it was. I did a lot of work with that.”
Hentz also has a Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching. In 2011, she resided in in Durban, South Africa for six months working at the University of KwaZulu-Natal where she authored a curriculum guide, “It’s My Business: Teaching Financial Literacy through Social Entrepreneurship,” that consists of teacher lesson plans, interactive activities, group projects, assessments, and entrepreneurial experiences.
“Entrepreneurship is a normal integration into their educational system like reading and math would be here,” she says. “That was pretty awesome to experience and be involved in.”
As much as she loved working for DPI, one of the huge reasons she started CEOs of Tomorrow was because she wasn’t able to have a direct impact on what’s happening with the racial achievement gap. “As a result of doing this work here, I feel like I’ve become a face to students where the professional people of color here in Madison, particularly in education, are very minimal,” Hentz says. “Growing up and being the only person of color in my fifth grade class, sixth grade class – we had two in seventh grade – I know the impact of growing up and never having a teacher of color and what that means. It’s important that those role models exist.”
Beyond that, Hentz wants to provide the opportunity for entrepreneurship for everyone. “It allows so many opportunities for all kids,” she says. “As it relates to poverty, entrepreneurship provides another source of income where kids can actually contribute to their family while building skills that they can use for a lifetime.
“In addition to this, it levels the playing field. You talk about opportunity … one of the reasons that there is a racial gap in Madison is because there is an opportunity gap,” she adds. “I want to make sure that opportunity exists for all kids. If you go on my website, it says that this designed for all children, no matter the race, economic level, etc. We arm our kids with tools that typically you don’t see young people having. It’s amazing.”
Hentz also is author of a book “It’s My Business: Inspiring Students’ Ideas for a Better Community.”
“It really walks teachers through from the beginning how to teach entrepreneurial education,” she says. “It ends with teaching kids how to run their own classroom social enterprise where they are making money, identifying a social issue and doing something to address that issue.”
In her book, she features five young people who have all opened businesses between the ages of 8-13. “Every one of the businesses still exist today,” she says. “It’s amazing the impact and the empowerment that you give to young people when you give them the opportunity to reach their full potential. This is across races, across socioeconomic levels. If you don’t allow young people to really explore their passions, it’s almost like handicapping kids. We don’t allow them to utilize their greatest strengths and to use those strengths to begin to do something now. Kids all over are doing it every day. We simply provide them with the tools and resources in order to do it.”
It’s not just about a kid opening up a business, the life skills they learn permeate in everything that they do. It also does wonders for their pride and self-esteem. “Leadership skills, confidence … when you know that you can accomplish something that typically you don’t see kids doing, children improve in every aspect,” Hentz says. “School changes because now you see school with a purpose. What you do in your family changes because now you see yourself as a contributor. Not just financially, but a contributor to society. That’s something that is so impactful on the life of a young person.”
This summer, CEOs of Tomorrow is launching two programs for youth. Kids in grades 4-8 can enroll in Business of Giving Summer Bootcamp at the Goodman Community Center, a fun and hands-on camp where young minds develop and launch a real business designed to make the world a better place.
“They actually run real businesses,” she says. “Monday-Friday, all-day.”
High school juniors and seniors can enroll in These Teens Mean Busines$, an introductory business course that not only teaches how to plan and launch their own businesses that make a difference, but also how to research potential markets, attract investors, market their businesses, and manage business finances. Students can also opt to earn three college credits by successfully passing the final assessment.
“Madison College is a partner so we will be utilizing their facilities,” Hentz says. “The young people will have a lot of opportunity on campus to get plugged into the entrepreneurial center that just opened there. That will be exciting. The young people will actually receive college credit, too!”
In the end, the children may some day not end up being an entrepreneur. But that’s OK. That’s really not necessarily the purpose of CEOs of Tomorrow.
“These skills they learn are transferable to so many different aspects of their lives,” Hentz says. “I think that’s truly incredible.”
Hentz says that she has worked out a five-year plan for CEOs of Tomorrow and that her goal is to be able to train multiple people to be able to provide this resource – both the curriculum and experience – to a larger audience. “Personally, my goal is for kids to be able to make a difference here and to see social issues that they feel passionate about and to see societal problems that they begin to feel empowered to do something about it,” she says. “My goal is that we birth here in Madison a group of young people who are motivated to really make a difference. To see people as assets and to not see deficit as a disability, but a strength.
“If we are successful, we will make an imprint on our society and we will make this community a better place based upon how they see it should be improved,” she adds. “I’m excited about what we’ve done so far and excited about where we are going. I’m looking forward to making a difference.”
