It's no stretch to say there are plenty of parents out there who haven't the faintest grasp on how to fix their screwed up credit ratings or get their car back from the repo man.
So why should they be the ones teaching kids to handle their finances?The states of Indiana and Kansas are now considering laws that would make personal finance a required part of the curriculum - from kindergarten up through high school.
It's about time.
According to the AP, at the moment, only three states require kids pass a high school course in finance before graduation - Utah, Missouri and Tennessee. Seventeen more require finance be worked into a portion of the curriculum . . . at some point in kids thirteen-year career in a school building.That's it.
What about the rest of the country? What about the millions of kids of whose parents were involved in the eighty-one percent hike in mortgage foreclosures last year, the kids of parents who racked up some $900 billion in credit card debt? Before you start telling me that this is all the banks' fault, I'm with you - Wall Street did a lot wrong on the way to this recession. But so did a lot of Americans who, as our president pointed out in his inaugural, lacked responsibility. Fiscal responsibility.
What's more - they lacked fiscal literacy skills (especially those swindled by dirty mortgage brokers). If we expect our schools to teach literacy to our kids, is it so wrong to expect them to teach financial literacy as well?
It's a life skill - which parents are traditionally wary of passing over to schools because of a fear that the schools' teachings will vary from the basic family values. But this is a life skill tied to the basics of math, economics, even social studies - the subjects already taught within a school building. A basic accounting course in high school, with the basics on how to write a check, balance a checkbook and a primer in how interest rates are compounded is rooted in fact. There's little variation from household to household on the basics - or there shouldn't be. That there is a variation, that there are parents who can't understand that a pile of checks in the checkbook doesn't equal money in the bank, is the problem. Kids need one answer - the right one - as they get ready for the future.
Would it bother you to know your kids were learning courses in financial preparedness in the public school system?
Image: More4Kids
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