And concerning “teachers not being replacements for parents” – Do you understand that there are single mothers and fathers out there that barely have time to see their children throughout the day – nonetheless have time to talk about how to manage money? Did you know that there are students that dedicate their lives to school, sports, community service, and other extracurricular activities and that they spend more time in class than they do at their own home – what do they do then – when they are dedicated and diligent students?

How many young adults will actually use Algebra II math concepts on a regular basis compared to handling money and making financial decisions that will affect their future?

Wouldn’t it make more sense if high school students could have a choice between higher math courses or personal finance courses to fulfil the Core 40 requirements?

The knowledge required is greater than ever. We don’t just balance our checkbooks, keep some savings in the bank and work towards a nice beefy pension like the WWII generation did. We are shouldered with more credit, more investment choices and more responsibilities for our own retirements than ever before. Simple math doesn’t adequately confront these issues. Parents are ill-equipped for these challenges in general. Most parents didn’t learn this, because they were taught the same old credo “get an education, get a job with benefits, work 30-40 years and get a pension” We are demanding that the blind lead the blind on one hand and than wonder why we are a nation of debtors on the other.

It works like this:
Students get jobs and salaries based on their current GPA (the higher your GPA, the better paying job you get). Several booths are set-up with different signs relating life events. Students go to each to add children, housing, entertainment, cars, etc into their budget. At the end, they have to have a balanced budget.

I helped out at one of these events at my local high school and it was great to see these kids doing the math and complaining how much kids cost or how they can’t buy the clothes they want because their job doesn’t allow it.

This is the the treasurer’s site with information on the program: http://www.yourmoneynowonline.org/content/view/566/478/

I really think it should be required of all high school seniors. Maybe even a primer as a freshmen. It is a real-life scenario that had another affect of making students more conscious of their grades. The 1.5 GPA students with the minimum wage jobs learned quickly that they are not going to be able to afford the lifestyles that their parents are currently providing them.

My two cents.

But you raise a good question — where do people go when their parents fail them? Well, it takes some initiative, reading, and research. Trial and error is usually how things work, but it doesn’t have to be. In fact, optional/elective classes throughout the public school system would have helped you. But why couldn’t anyone tell you what to do with a W-4 form? I’m sure if you were confused by the form, someone at the company for which you were to begin working would help you out. The W-4 is basically self-explanatory (instructions are at the top of the form) as long as you stick to the first page — and as someone newly entering the workforce, chances are that’s all you’ll need.

Put a bunch of jobs with different incomes in a hat, and let the kids pick. Give them Monopoly money to match the jobs and income levels. Let them make out a budget, and work out “credit card” problems – you can get that big-screen TV on your salary as a bus driver, but you need to see the hole it makes in your monthly/weekly budget, and for how long. Teach them how to fill out a simple tax form! Teach them how to buy a house!

There’s very little I’ve taken away from school that would be as useful as most of the above.

If schools are not teaching life skills, then it’s a poor educational system. How many COLLEGE graduate know how to effectively file an income tax form or realize how much their credit card purchases and educational loans are costing in interest? Certainly, HS grads know even less about it.

Math becomes a much more meaningful subject when it is applied to real life situations. I never understoon why I had to take Geometry in HS (College track requirement,) measuring the square feet in mythical football fields for no reason I could fathom. But the first time, as a married adule, that I purchased wall to wall carpets, it suddenly dawned on me that knowing the area of a room might be useful!

When I was in 7th and 8th grades a million years ago in Philadelphia, our Math teacher had the local bank bring in blank checks and registers, and we learned how to write checks and blanace an account and how compound interest worked. When I realized that my kids were not getting any of this kind of education in their schools, I had them write out our household checks (I signed them,) record them, and then reconcile the account to our statements each month. When they got to college and had their own checking accounts, they told me they were among the only ones in their class who knew how to handle their accounts. I also taught them what interest did to unpaid balances on credit card purchases, and to this day, they never run balances on their credit cards. (As a Public Health Educator who saw kids who knew nothing about handling their own health care, I also started sending my kids into their doc appointments alone (I’d sit in the waiting room and just talk to the doc afterwards,) from the time they were about 13. They’d make lists of questions to take in with them, and learned how to navigate the medical care system.)

Yes, this parent taught them, but obviously a lot of other college-bound kids did not get the help from parents, and frankly, I’m pretty sure the non-college bound (Yes Virginia, there IS a whole population of kids who don’t go to college!) get even less help in handling money.

Teachers don’t have to be investment specialists to teach this stuff – and they can aleays bring in guests presenters from local banks and investment compaines to spice up the class. Real life people the kids may have to deal with in the future.

And not everything has to be a separate course…I run teacher workshops on how to integrate Health Eduction into English, Science, Social Studies and Math classes…at ALL grade levels.

Think outside the box, people!

Teachers should be trained to teach basics,
how checking accounts work
what comes out of paychecks
credit card terms
staying organized to pay bills

Parents can’t teach this stuff because they don’t know.

No room in the curriculum is an excuse for “afraid of change”. We need to fight for teaching our kids what matter. Unfortuneately, corporations pay for the lobbyists who make sure our lack of education continues to benefit them.

That being said, I was taught in public school, 6th grade math how balance a checkbook. It was an entire section of our coursework. I have no idea why our public school decided to do this, but teaching word problems about compounding interest or the present value of money seems to me the natural place to do some commonsense teaching about personal finances. These are essential math skills every kid should have before graduating from high school (If they choose to stick it out for a diploma, which I know many kids do not). Heck, if I have to do present value, I have to break out a spreadsheet and do it manually to ensure I get the math right. But by gum, I get it right because I know the basic math, even if I’m an idiot and have to reverse engineer the calculation every time I need it.

Could it be that hard to teach personal finance as an integral math unit to junior high students? Probably not. That’s when most of this level of math is first introduced. I learned about shareholding from a stock market game/apple company our class ran in private school for 6th grade. (Yes, I repeated a grade, but that’s another story.)

I think the problem is literally academic though. Kids who are not accustomed to handling money, don’t take to the lesson very well because they don’t actually watch its ebb and flow out of their wallets. This perhaps is why every kid ought to work for money either inside or outside the home, just to get a taste of the real world and how to handle money. Think of this, how old were you before you handled over $200.00 worth of cash? Have you ever handled $1000.00 worth of cash? What about $5000.00? $10,000.00?

I would wager for most folks, it’s not till they are a cashier that they see that kind of money. I only handled sums like that because I worked for my parents. I used to make change for our customers when I was 12. I would help my dad count money at home when I was even younger than that. (Ok, maybe it was wrong sometimes and it was only wrapping pennies, but it got me used to being accurate and why it’s darned important.)

This is a great discussion post. I love it. I hope everyone weighs in. There’s going to be some great ideas in the comments.

Teach a money management class in high school and I’ll bet most students will think “I don’t need this b/c I’m going to be wealthy and I won’t need a budget/money management skills.”

Of course, WE all know better, but it’s not easy to force OUR values about ANYTHING onto a teenager.

The other points he cites (health, physical education, etc) are valid – and the lack of them a symptomatic sign of our struggling education system (another topic entirely). However, I absolutely favor a phased approach that is introduced earlier in school and continues throughout. In absence of that, we are left to rely on our parents…unfortunately, that does not seem to be working very well so far.

I think as people interested in personal finance, we would like to see what *we* find important included in the state-mandated curriculum, but there are priorities, and personal finance is not included. Parenting is a life skill, and if we were all interested in parenting, some would be calling for mandatory high school classes…

First there would have to be a training program for teachers at the university level, culminating in a bachelor’s degree in money management education. Such a degree will never exist. A couple of weeks spent on money management within some other class, like 7th grade home economics, is sufficient.

Parents bear the most responsibility, and schools don’t have room in the curriculum for an entire high school level class devoted to something that teachers have had no training for and is the parents’ responsibility.

If a high school has the resources, they can create an elective.