AICPA sponsors program to help educators better prepare students for accounting careers

The AICPA is partnering with state CPA societies in a sponsorship capacity on the Accounting Pilot & Bridge Project, a program to train high school educators across the country to teach higher-order accounting topics.

The program, created in 2006 by Dan Deines, is modeled on a class he developed at Kansas State University to provide a higher-level accounting curriculum for high schools to better prepare students for a career in accounting.

After participating in APBP training sessions, accounting teachers can integrate the topics covered into a course more advanced than those generally offered at high schools. The curriculum, which features a combination of financial and managerial accounting topics, is comparable to that of an entry-level accounting course. More than 1,000 high school teachers in 42 states have been trained through the program and are ready to implement the curriculum in their local schools.

Over the summer, the AICPA sponsored five sessions for high school teachers in conjunction with state CPA societies in Alabama, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas.