Teacher: Dr. Howard Richman

Email: howard@pahomeschoolers.com

Texts: Principles of Economics, by Gregory and Ruffin; Teaching Company (SuperStar Teacher) lectures (audio or video) by Prof. Timothy Taylor (third edition).

Costs and Requirements:

• Class tuition fee: $449.
• Class textbook, Principles of Economics by Ruffin and Gregory, Seventh Edition. Last I looked, you could get the used textbook from the amazon.com for just a few dollars. [Note: If you cannot find Principles of Economics inexpensively available used, you could get Principles of Macroeconomics by the same authors. We will only be doing the chapters that are published simultaneously in both books. The advantage of Principles of Economics is that it covers both Macro and Micro, should you decide to study for the Microeconomics exam.]
• SuperStar lectures by Timothy Taylor from The Teaching Company. Every summer, The Teaching Company puts them on sale (e-mail me if you missed the sale). Your options are (1) audio downloads available for $49.95, (2) new cassettes or audio CDs available on sale for $69.95, (3) VHS Videos available for $79.95, or (4) DVDs available for $99.95. If you buy hard media you can sell them to me for half price at the conclusion of the class. If the used lectures are available for sale, you will find them in the online store at http://www.pahomeschoolers.com if you click on "AP Online Classes" once you have entered the store.
• Unlimited Internet access.
• A scanner for scanning in hand-drawn economics graphs will save you time. (You can make do, although it takes longer, by drawing simple graphs using either Microsoft Word or a computer drawing program such as Paintshop or Photoshop.)
• It is strongly recommended that you download AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) for your computer. I will usually be available to answer your questions on AIM between 8pm and 9pm, Tuesday through Thursday (that's just before the game board gets advanced to the next day's position).

Highly interactive rated 3: Students discuss economics, respond to each others’ essays, and play economics games on the class website. Students are expected to log on to the website every weekday, but there are no class “chats” that would require logging on at any particular time of the day.

Time Requirement: This class requires an average of about 90 minutes per weekday from Labor Day until the end of February with two weeks off for Christmas and 1 week off for Thanksgiving.

Class Description: Are you the sort of person who likes to talk about the effects of government policies and what the government should or should not do? You may be a born economist. Macroeconomics is the part of economics that studies government actions and looks mostly at problems of the economy as a whole such as inflation, unemployment, recession, international trade, and long-term growth. We will specifically learn about economics theories of important economists from Adam Smith, to Keynes, to Milton Friedman.

In this class, you will learn how to predict the effects of government actions. For example, "What happens to unemployment rates when the government raises the minimum wage or cuts taxes?"

You will learn the skills necessary for analyzing economics problems: how to use the vocabulary of economists, how to draw “supply” and “demand” curves, how to read economics graphs, and how to pull the economy out of recessions or inflationary spirals.

The most fun part of the class is the economics simulation games. Each game will be played twice (each run lasting two weeks), and there will be four games during the year.

1. The Business Game: You will either be a burger retailer or a wholesaler. Wholesalers arrange sales to retailers and decide whether or not to build new factories and/or invest in improved technology. Retailers sell to a fictional public and the amount they sell depends upon their market share, price, and advertising. This game teaches the microeconomics of supply and demand through a business simulation.
2. Guns or Butter Game: You are the absolute dictator of a country and you need to decide how to spend your money. You can also trade with your allies to take advantage of each country’s comparative advantages. But watch out, if you don’t build enough weapons you could be attacked. This game teaches about the importance of investment, maintaining defensive strength, and comparative advantage in international trade.
3. International Growth Game: You are both a government and an investor. As a government you use fiscal and monetary policies to try to attract investment. As an investor you try to pick the best countries (from among the other countries) for your new factories. This game teaches some of the relationships between money supply, government spending, taxation, interest rates, and private investment.
4. Exchange-Rate Game: You will be either the business or the government segment of a country. Businesses are trying to make more money than other businesses and governments are trying to enhance worker income while avoiding a wealth-destroying devaluation. This game requires an understanding of international capital movements and foreign trade, the main factors that affect the relative prices of currencies.

We will finish up all of the macro-economics class work by March 1. You would just need to review in order to prepare for the AP Macroeconomics exam in May. If you also want to prepare for the AP Microeconomics exam, the textbooks and tapes for the macro-economics class cover both macro and micro, so you wouldn’t have to buy any additional materials.

Who can apply: Registrations will only be accepted for homeschooled students who will be in 11th or 12th grades during the 2008-2009 school year. All 11th or 12th grade homeschooled students who complete their registration on or before August 15 will be accepted. There are no class prerequisites.

How to register: Simply pay the tuition by August 15, 2008, using the store at www.pahomeschoolers.com.

Teacher qualifications: This will be my tenth year teaching this class to homeschoolers over the Internet. I graduated with a BA in Economics from Carnegie Mellon University and I co-authored a 2008 economics policy book, Trading Away Our Future: How to Fix Our Government-Driven Trade Deficits and Faulty Tax System Before it's Too Late that I co-authored with my father, a Professor Emeritus in economics from the University of Pittsburgh, and my eldest always-homeschooled son, a professor of political science at Old Dominion University.

Class Goals:

1. To help you learn how to use the vocabulary and graphs of economics so that you will do well on the AP test. Most of the assignments are designed to get you reading and writing using the vocabulary of economics.
2. To get you familiar with the original writings of important economists who are passionate about their opinions so that you will come to enjoy economics. For several of your weekly essays during the first half of the year, you will read and write about an original work by a important economist of your choice.
3. To help you see how economics applies to real-world issues. During the first half of the year, you will often apply what you learn to a current policy question of your choice. (During the second half of the year, you will be applying what you learn to AP Macroeconomics questions from past AP exams.)
4. To help you learn how to succeed with a college level class. I insist that you keep up with assignments, which is the main thing that you need to do to succeed in college.
5. To give you the opportunity to engage in Internet discussions with other homeschooled students who are just as interested in the world as you are.

Class Schedule: The class will basically be on a five week rhythm. Every week you will read a new chapter in the textbook and you will often listen to or watch a lecture on a Super Star Economist tapes. The first week in every five will focus on the new game we are about to begin, while the second to fifth weeks will require you to write an essay.

Every weekday you'll be expected to log on to the web site and do all of the following while you are there:

• Answer correctly at least four more multiple choice economics review questions than you answer incorrectly.
• Post at least one response to a student's essay (first half of the year) or grade a sample essay (second half of the year), or contribute to the class discussion on the class WWWboard.
• Make a move in the economics game (during a textbook week).
• Participate in a class discussion by posting on the class WWWBoard.

The class will start the day after Labor day and there will be off for the entire week of Thanksgiving when I will send a midterm report home and for the entire two weeks that include Christmas Day and New Years Day. The daily classes and assignments will end in early March, but you will still be expected to take a final exam (that your parents administer at home) in late April. I will score your exam before the end of April and send you a final report home about how well you did in the class and on the exam. I will also suggest a grade which your parents can choose to use (or not) on your transcript.

Those who plan to take the AP Microeconomics exam as well can study for that test in March and April.

Those who want to do some advanced reading for the class are encouraged to read any of these original books by important economists. You should be able to find some of them at your local library:

• An Inquiry into the Nature of Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (1776) -- the book that founded modern economics
• Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman (1962) -- an explanation of the benefits of capitalism and why socialism inevitably takes away freedom.
• Free to Choose: A Personal Statement by Milton and Rose Freeman (1979) -- free market solutions to various problems.
• The Making of Modern Economics: The Lives and Ideas of the Great Thinkers by Mark Skousen (2001) -- a history of economics thought with an emphasis upon those economists who understood the benefits of free markets and capitalism.

Grades and standards: I expect everyone to succeed with the class work and to do well on the AP exam, and I will try to make sure that you do so:

• You will be required to use the vocabulary of economists (both phrases and graphs) when you write your weekly essays.
• You will be required to read each assigned chapter in your textbook and answer short-answer questions on the class website (getting immediate feedback).
• You will be expected to post essays when required (four weeks out of five). During the second half of the year, you will be expected to write two essays per week, from actual AP exams!
• You will be expected to listen to or watch lectures by a SuperStar economist and answer short-answer questions on the class website (getting immediate feedback).
• Students who fall a few days behind will be warned by e-mail. Students who fall one week or more behind in their work will have their parents contacted. You and your parents will be contacted again if you fall two weeks behind. If you fall three weeks behind you will be dropped from the class. If you are planning to go on a family vacation, you can do work in advance so that you will not fall behind.
• You get points by doing your required work well and by doing extra work (such as answering lots of multiple choice questions on the web site, placing well in class games, or writing helpful or thoughtful responses to other student's essays). Your final grade in the class will be an average of your grade based upon the points that you have earned and your grade on the final exam, which will be an actual AP Macroeconomics exam. Your grade can be raised further, however, if you score even higher on the actual AP exam taken in May.
• According to my students, you can usually get an "A" by just devoting about 7.5 hours per week (about 90 minutes each weekday) to the class. You will not have to do any work on weekends.

• 18 got "5's", the equivalent of a college "A+"
• 6 got "4's", the equivalent of a college "A"
• 2 got "3's", the equivalent of a college "B"
• 1 got "2's", the equivalent of a college "C"
• 0 got "1's", the equivalent of a college "F"