By William Croyle
Enquirer contributor

EDGEWOOD - The Sport City Cafe opened at 9:30 Friday morning. Posters, pennants and jerseys lined the walls. Football was on TV. Music blared.

Barbecued chicken and turkey sandwiches, vegetables, drinks and more were served.

By 1:30 p.m., the restaurant was out of business - as planned. The goal was to teach real-world career lessons.

Turkey Foot Middle School eighth-graders opened the business in school for a career choices class. They applied for jobs, greeted patrons and cooked food.

"It's important because all of these students will have a job in the future," said teacher Cindy Cummins.

One hundred students worked for an hour each, serving school and district staff.

John Roebker, 13, of Villa Hills was a cashier. "We're learning how to do certain jobs and take responsibility for them," he said.

Amanda McAtee, 13, of Park Hills, assistant manager, said, "Learning out of a book gets boring and you don't always remember it. But we're going to remember this for a long time."

Terry Orr, associate professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, in New York, has researched school-to-work issues. She said Cummins' class goes beyond the basics, showing kids social and emotional issues, such as teamwork, timeliness and thoroughness. "This has multiple curricular purposes and is very important," said Orr.

"Economics has a reputation of being abstract and dismal," said Jan Mester, president of the Kentucky Council on Economic Education, which helps teachers. "It's real life, and the kids love hands-on, meaningful, engaged learning."

The Kentucky Education Reform Act, passed in 1990, said kids were to receive a hands-on, real-world education, said Lisa Gross, spokeswoman for the state's Department of Education. "We've seen a lot of it in schools over the last 10 years."

But Harlan Day, executive director of the Indiana Council on Economic Education, said more needs to be done in his state.

"Philosophically, they'd like to head that way," said Day. "But testing is so important and such a concern to the teachers that they may do less in experimental learning."

Ron Klink, director of education services at the Economic Center for Education and Research at the University of Cincinnati, said he's seen testing put at the forefront in Ohio, but he thinks that is changing.

"We sense an emerging interest here in being more cross-disciplined," he said. "It's not just about understanding something like math, but how it applies to the broader world."