In 2015, a stringent new financial literacy law took effect in Oklahoma. It requires all high school students to pass a class on personal finance before they can graduate. Banking, taxes, investing, loans, insurance, and identity theft among other subjects will be part of the curriculum, and the teachers will have to certify that their students comprehend them all. Other states have followed suit over the past few years.
A recent study analyzed 11,000 high school course catalogs and concluded only 1 in 6 high schoolers are currently required to take a personal finance course to graduate. But, are students really getting the critical life skills that help everyday adults avoid money problems such as budgeting, saving, investing, and even how to file their income taxes. According to the National Financial Educator Council, not knowing enough about personal finance costs Americans over $295 billion per year collectively.
Given the woefully high levels of financial illiteracy in America, making such a course standard and required in high schools might sound like a fine idea. There’s just one big risk: Those teachers could lead their students astray.
Increasing the depth at which American high schools teach personal finance — going further than simple budgeting, balancing a checkbook, compound interest and the like — opens several cans of worms. How qualified are the teachers? How will school districts fund these new courses? How are they adding these subjects to crowded curriculums?
Classes in budgeting, credit cards, compound interest, and other basic personal finance skills can help prepare our children for adulthood. The problem stems from overzealous mandates. Our children — and far too often, our teachers — aren’t in a position to handle more than a cursory examination of financial topics.
Unqualified Teachers Teaching Financial Literacy
School districts need to certify teachers in a specific financial discipline much as they would for a math or history teacher. Or school districts should contract outside professionals.
“Teachers feel unqualified to teach financial literacy,” says Julie Heath, director of the Economics Center and economics professor in at the University of Cincinnati. “Eighty-two percent say they are not prepared to teach these concepts, even as over 90 percent of them think they need to be taught in schools.”
“Schools and districts shouldn’t place any teacher in a position to teach subject matter he or she feels unqualified to teach,” says Heath. “Shrinking budgets mean that teachers often do not get the professional development that would make them more confident to teach financial literacy.”
How well qualified to teach financial literacy, for example, is a teacher with $50,000 in credit card debt?
“To be a teacher or a leader, you must lead and teach by example. We cannot expect someone who is in disarray with their own finances to be placed in a position of teaching someone, regardless of age, about their finances,” says Michael Minter, managing partner of Mintco Financial in Tampa, Fla. “This may be the ultimate root to a [more] serious problem in our country, the financial literacy [or lack there of] among parents and teachers.”
“I think one of the dangers of teaching financial literacy to American high school students is the legacy of fear that money brings,” says Mindy Crary, certified financial planner and financial planning coach. “Is this just another thing that people want kids to be afraid of because they think it’s better to be paralyzed by fear than make a mistake?”
The Integrated Approach
Some school districts in Oklahoma are embedding personal finance modules into math, science, home economics and other subjects throughout the school year instead of having a dedicated financial literacy or personal finance class. “Financial literacy should be weaved into many subjects throughout all school years,” says Katie Stokes, a certified financial planner and director of financial planning at J.E. Wilson Advisors.
“Like most life skills, learning financial literacy is cumulative,” says Stokes. “You can’t expect a high school student to take a semester-long course in economics and come out financially literate. Literacy is knowledge, but without real-world application, that knowledge is stale and not committed to long-term memory.”
Leverage Financial Planners in the Local Community
Some school districts are outsourcing the expertise from their local communities. Crary recommends having the teacher be a facilitator and coordinator for bringing in experts to teach. “You could have a great class where you bring in parents and community members to discuss the best things they ever learned about money and have the kids start to build their own philosophy based on what resonated with them.”
“The greatest danger in teaching financial literacy to high school students is not allowing financial institutions to lobby for influence on the curriculum,” Michael H. Baker, a certified financial planner with Vertex Capital Advisors in Charlotte, N.C. “Kids need to learn true principles and fundamentals that are not influenced by financial bias and marketing of the large institutions that seek to gain brand loyalty with the younger generations.”
Baker suggests having a financial counselor or coach for a school district serve as a mentor for teachers as they learn the new curriculum. It could be a win-win situation for financial planners in the community who are looking for a new future potential client base and school districts desperate for knowledgeable instructors.
Parents Still Hold the Key to Financial Literacy of Our Children
America must address financial literacy early and often in our children’s lives. Mandating high school courses may not be the answer.
According to a recent survey by H&R Block and its Dollars & Sense financial literacy program, a curriculum for teachers and teens, 75% of teenagers say their parents are their most important source of financial information. In fact, 62% of survey respondents thought of their parents as good role models for money management, and only 4% saw their parents as poor examples of how to handle money.
Right now, just 17 states require high school graduates to take a class on personal finance, reports the Council for Economic Education and its 2014 Survey of the States.
“This leaves the responsibility for teaching crucial financial tasks like balancing a budget or managing credit cards to parents, says Kathy Collins, chief marketing officer for H&R Block. “Many of [parents] feel uncomfortable having these difficult but necessary discussions with their children.”
Be sure to check out my review of the BusyKid App. BusyKid is the only chore app that allows your kids to turn their allowance into their own Visa card, real stock shares in real companies, and charitable donations.
Financial literacy will continue to take a back seat until it is seen as a legitimate academic discipline, full-time teachers are certified to instruct personal-finance-specific classes, standardized curriculums are created, and semester-long classes are mandated throughout the country.
Americans and politicians far too often see financial literacy simply as a life skill that we add to another classroom subject like home economics. But, we should look at it as a standalone subject that our children are missing.
Should school districts mandate that high schools teach personal finance? How can states do a better job teaching this critical life skill?
Portions of this article were first featured on AOL Daily Finance and have been reprinted with permission.
As always, a government body is taking things too far. I don’t think the schools should be teaching the “how’s and whys” of money. They also should not be teaching in depth courses on money management. But they should teach concepts. I went to private school most of my life. I was in the 5th grade when I lear about writing out a check and balancing a checkbook. However, that was all I learned. Ever. Aside from voluntary participation in a Junior Achievement class where we did the stock market game.
Speaking if JA, last year I gave back and volunteered a day at their BizTown. It was set up like a little town and the kids had to run businesses. They earned money that they had to budget. Some of these kids were seniors in high school. Even those that had real bank accounts had no idea how to right out a check or balance their books. They all said we just check our balances online. They had real jobs but never budgeted. They happened to all be enrolled in military academies, so they were heading into the military before going to college or getting jobs. But seeing their lack of basic knowledge was very worrisome to me!
I do agree that finance should be interwoven through many subjects…it is in real life!
One thing I will say is the idea that someone in $50k of debt is unqualified to teach about money does irk me a little. I’ve been in financial services for 20 years. However, 3 years ago we had to file bankruptcy. It was not because I didn’t know any better. It was also not because we were stupid with money. There also wasn’t even very much consumer debt involved. Our income was cut in half after the birth of our second child. My husband lost his job and then was unemployed for 2 years. Our emergency fund slowly dwindled and we began to lose all our assets a little at a time. We had to move away from everyone we know and when he did finally go back to work it was for half of what he’d made previously. So not knowing someone’s circumstances makes it hard to to determine their qualifications on talking about money. Maybe that teacher comes from the knowledge that she spent WAY too much money on a degree that did not have a high ROI and she is now in debt because her student loan payments are financially crippling and she can’t make ends meet on her meager salary. It’s a tough lesson to learn but it’s just as important (if not more) as hearing from someone that does it all perfectly (if that exists).
What powerful insight! Thank you for sharing. I am an educator and I also teach financial literacy outside of school. This is powerful.
I learned a lot from this article and it has many great insights here. It’s very helpful and useful. Thanks for sharing this post. Great!
Come on Hank. Isn’t it more likely that some financial advisor would lead someone astray because the student never learned about a bond, or stock, or interest, or fees, or etc…?
Thank you for sharing your insights, sir. As an advocate for financial literacy taught in schools, I would like to share my experience that might offer you some insight. In high school, since there were no personal finance courses, my parents had me homeschooled in one class which was Dave Ramsey’s personal finance course. I look at all my previous classmates, and one thing that I worry about is with their financial choices, will they ever become financially independent? In this class, I was taught how to write out a check, how to set a budget, how to pay for a car, how to avoid debt and so much more. No, there is no one way to prepare for financial independence, but that was a wonderful start for me.
It seems odd to me that the first half of your article, you argue that we can’t trust teachers to teach the right thing, just because they may have debt or they may have not made the best financial decisions. I think that school boards and the hiring people can do their own research and figure out what is best as to who teaches this particular course.
Many believe that parents are to teach their children how to manage their money. If you look around to recent studies, you’ll learn that many parents themselves do not have this knowledge. Throughout time, I think that this skill can be learned, and just maybe, this simple start can lead to a decrease of student debt, the decline in unemployment, and the rise in retirement savings.