It’s a sobering thought: Florida’s students are graduating high school without a good understanding of how to manage money.
Michael L. Bell, M.E.d., Executive Director of the Florida Council on Economic Education
The unfortunate truth is, nearly half of Florida’s graduating seniors lack comprehension of financial basics like credit scores, balancing checkbooks, paying back loans and avoiding bankruptcy. For each student who graduates prepared, another leaves school unready to meet financial challenges.
One of the reasons for this is lack of adequate financial education. A recent study by the Council for Economic Education found that students in states with a specific, required financial literacy course were more likely to save and pay off credit cards, and less likely to be compulsive buyers and make late payments.
Florida took a step in the right direction in 2013 by including financial literacy content in its education standards – but it didn’t go far enough.
While deliberating the bill that introduced some level of financial education to our students, lawmakers became alarmed by the growing trend of crushing personal debt incurred by high-school graduates. Research has shown this debt not only impairs their ability to find a job, but also their ability to keep one.
Fortunately, lawmakers did the right thing in that 2013 bill that required financial literacy for our high-school students. The Florida Department of Education also studied the cost of a one-semester, half-credit statewide course and found it to be very reasonable, as little as $140,000. And last month, the DOE finished updating our state’s education standards to prepare for a required financial literacy course.
So what’s left to do?
Lawmakers just need now to finish what they’ve started, by passing legislation to create that required course on financial literacy. We call it the Money Course. But Florida’s students – and businesses – may well call it a lifesaver when our graduating seniors hit campuses, offices and shops knowing how to keep and manage their money for a lifetime.
This article was originally written by Michael Bell and posted on the Pensacola News Journal July 26th 2014.
By JD Hoye, President, National Academy Foundation.
Balancing a checkbook, creating and sticking to a budget, and setting up a savings account — these skills are vital, and with Financial Literacy Month upon us, it is crucial that we think about how not to just make the time to teach these skills, but reflect on how to do it in a way that engages students beyond the theoretical. Read more…
Illinois has placed a high priority on the financial literacy of its students, as it was one of the first states to implement rigorous economic and personal finance standards. This semester, its largest city continues to raise the bar for school systems nationwide: Chicago Public Schools (CPS) introduces a dedicated personal finance course for 12th-graders with resources developed by CEE.
Nan J. Morrison, President & CEO of CEE, outlines what this means for CPS and our nation’s students in her latest blog post on Huffington Post Education, “Chicago Public Schools Raise the Bar for Financial Education.”
Read the full blog post here.
Kate O’Hagan, a 4th grade teacher in Brooklyn, NY, uses CEE’s ‘Classroom Mini-Economy’ to teach real-world lessons in her class.
The United Federation of Teachers wrote a great article about Kate and her class, “Although they’re having fun, these children at PS 97 in Brooklyn are learning the serious business of being a grown-up in the Classroom Mini-Economy project, which O’Hagan began this past September after taking a free professional development unit on it at the Council for Economic Education in Manhattan.” Read more…
The lights went out at Super Bowl XVLII, but it wasn’t because the stadium didn’t pay the bills.
In fact, NFL stars are promoting financial literacy through VISA’s Financial Football DVD. Read more…
Annamaria Lusardi is the Denit Trust professor of economics and accountancy at the George Washington School of Business.
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