School curriculum is usually the purview of education experts, but this fall it could be decided by California voters, who will vote on adding a new requirement for high school students: a one-semester class in managing personal finances.

California鈥檚 Secretary of State is poised to certify that the  is eligible for the November ballot, which would add financial literacy to the list of high school graduation requirements beginning with the class of 2030.

Students would learn about paying for college, online banking, taxes, budgeting, credit, retirement accounts, loans, how the stock market works and other topics. The issue is critical, organizers said, as students face a shifting economy and difficult decisions about college, careers and their futures.

鈥淣o one comes out of the womb knowing how to manage their credit score. It has to be taught,鈥� said Tim Ranzetta, co-founder of a  and a chief backer of the initiative. 鈥淎nd right now there鈥檚 a dramatic gap between what students know and what they need to know. We have to change that.鈥�

Voters seem to agree with him. A 2022  of adults nationwide showed that nearly 90% support a financial literacy requirement in high school, and nearly as many wished they had taken such a course when they were students. 

That鈥檚 not surprising, considering the financial woes many people incur. The average  is $8,366, the sixth-highest rate in the country, and 1 in 6 borrowers nationwide are in default on their student loans. 

Financial literacy already in classrooms

But some education experts have pushed back, not because they鈥檙e opposed to financial literacy for students but because they question whether voters are best equipped to dictate what鈥檚 taught in classrooms.

Currently, the state鈥檚 History-Social Studies framework includes a , required for graduation, that covers much of the same material proposed by the financial literacy ballot initiative proponents. Financial literacy is also included in first, second and ninth grade curriculum. First graders, for example, learn that money can be exchanged for goods and services, and people make decisions about how to spend their money.

But Ranzetta said the curriculum, which was last updated in 2017, doesn鈥檛 focus enough on financial literacy. Personal finance is covered for only a few weeks in the economics course; the rest covers more abstract economic concepts like international trade, resource allocation and the benefits and drawbacks of capitalism. Individual teachers can choose how much they want to focus on certain topics.

State Superintendent Tony Thurmond wouldn鈥檛 answer questions about the ballot initiative, although he endorsed it. Linda Darling-Hammond, president of the State Board of Education, also wouldn鈥檛 answer questions. 

Leaving curriculum decisions to voters is 鈥榓 bad idea鈥�

The proposed ballot initiative so far has almost zero opposition, but some are questioning the idea of letting voters 鈥� and not education experts 鈥� decide what students learn in the classroom. Ordinarily, curriculum in California is developed by a group of teachers and subject-matter professionals who serve on the , which meets publicly six times a year. New curriculum is subject to multiple reviews, edits and public vetting, ultimately going before the  for adoption. Local school boards can adjust curriculum according to the needs of their students.

Polikoff worries that adopting curriculum through ballot initiatives could set a dangerous precedent. Religious or anti-LGBTQ curriculum, for example, could be approved by voters, setting up costly and lengthy legal showdowns with the state Department of Education. 

Curriculum can be complicated, as well. When writing new curricula, the Instructional Quality Commission looks at the broader context, making sure students get new material every year that builds on what they learned previously, subjects don鈥檛 overlap and topics are flexible enough for teachers to adapt lessons to the individual needs of their students. Textbooks and tests are also taken into consideration. 

Legislature weighs in

Most curriculum updates and changes originate with the commission, but sometimes the Legislature weighs in. The state鈥檚 new  and  requirements, for example, stemmed from Assembly bills. Another bill, , would add computer science as a graduation requirement.

, a financial literacy bill proposed by Democrat  of Sacramento, would actually do almost the same thing as the ballot initiative. The bill would require financial literacy as a graduation requirement, although it would go into effect until 2031, a year later than the ballot measure.

Bruce Fuller, education professor at UC Berkeley, said he worries about the increasing politicization of curriculum 鈥� either from the Legislature or those pushing for ballot initiatives.

鈥淲e have these political interests unabashedly trying to control what鈥檚 taught in the classroom, instead of leaving it up to teachers and locally elected school boards,鈥� Fuller said. 鈥淲e should trust those folks to devise thoughtful curriculum that鈥檚 appropriate for their students.鈥�

He also questioned the ever-growing list of graduation requirements. High schools only offer six or seven class periods a day, and with more required classes there鈥檚 less room for art and other electives. Some districts have started adding an extra period so students can fit in all the classes they need to take to graduate,  and qualify for California鈥檚 public universities. 

鈥淚鈥檓 not sure how adding more required classes is going to motivate restless teenagers,鈥� Fuller said. 鈥淲ith more requirements, we鈥檙e giving them almost no chance to study things they鈥檙e actually interested in.鈥� 

McCarty鈥檚 bill  is not the Legislature鈥檚 first attempt to wade into financial literacy. A dozen bills requiring financial literacy have died or been vetoed in recent years, in most cases because financial literacy curriculum already exists and the state already has a system for adopting curriculum.

As Gov. Jerry Brown wrote in 2018 when he  that would have made financial literacy materials available to teachers: 鈥淭his bill is unnecessary. The History-Social Science Framework already contains financial literacy content for pupils in kindergarten through grade 12, as well as a financial literacy elective.鈥�

Ranzetta said the Legislature鈥檚 inability to pass a financial literacy curriculum is what spurred him to take the matter directly to voters.

鈥淚 recognize the value of the process, but it鈥檚 slow and so far it hasn鈥檛 worked in California,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he issue is too urgent and too popular to wait any longer.鈥�     

Ranzetta grew up in New Jersey, where his father was a banker and his mother was a community volunteer who raised six children. He learned financial literacy from his parents, and assumed other young people did, too. It wasn鈥檛 until he started volunteering at an East Palo Alto high school that he realized many students are clueless about money, and that ignorance can hamper them throughout their lives. But they were eager to learn, he said, and share the information with their parents.

That experience inspired him to start NextGen Personal Finance, which offers free financial literacy curriculum and training for teachers. At least 7,000 teachers in California and more than 100,000 nationwide have participated, he said.

A class that demystifies money

At Berkeley High, Crystal Rigley Janis teaches two economics classes and three personal finance classes, covering topics she wishes she knew as a young person: how to negotiate a salary, not relying on gut instinct when investing, and avoiding individual stocks in favor of index funds.

鈥淚t took me 15 years to understand those things, and it probably cost me millions of dollars,鈥� said Rigley, who worked for several years at a wealth management firm before going into teaching. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 want other people to make the mistakes I did.鈥�

Eliza Maier, a senior, was so inspired by Rigley鈥檚 class that she opened a Roth IRA when she turned 18 and transferred money from her low-interest savings account. The class, she said, helped demystify money and the role it can play in major life choices.

鈥淲e learned that money isn鈥檛 good or bad 鈥� it鈥檚 a tool,鈥� Maier said. 鈥淚t can help you realize your goals. It can help you be prepared for whatever happens in your life. I didn鈥檛 know anything about money when I started taking this class, but I think it鈥檚 so important, especially for high school students.鈥�

This was originally posted on .

One day, students at Hillside High School were greeted in Shianyisimi Ogede鈥檚 economics and personal finance class with the question: 鈥淲hat percentage of students get financial aid?鈥� With this year鈥檚 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) opening in , financing education after high school is one of the many topics she covers with her 10th and 12th grade students.

In early December, the Center for Financial Literacy at Champlain College in Vermont released a , grading each state on its delivery of personal finance education in high school. According to the report, these courses are increasingly being offered in schools across the country after the pandemic highlighted the extent of income inequality. More concern about students learning about loans for college and filling out the FAFSA has also been an influence.

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The report says that high school financial instruction improves credit scores, lowers loan delinquency rates, and reduces the use of risky services such as payday lending.

Seven states earned an 鈥淎鈥� grade based on how well they guaranteed and executed access to a course focused on personal finance for students that graduated from high school in the spring of 2023. The center projects that in five years, 23 states will meet the same standard — with North Carolina being one of them. Now, along with 41% of other states, North Carolina sits at a 鈥淏.鈥�

Preparation for these courses has been aided by the increase of free online curricular courses offered by state departments of education and other organizations. The report projects that there will be a need for 30,000 highly trained personal finance educators in the states that earned an A or B grade by 2028.

The North Carolina legislature in 2019 requiring financial literacy discussions in schools as a graduation requirement.

During summer 2020, the offered virtual professional development for the new course. This 40-hour professional development included presentations from NCCEE, , The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, and . The five-day training consisted of a pretest, group activities, and a post test, as well as access to free resources to help them teach the course.

Sandy Wheat, executive director of the NCCEE, said that teachers gained more confidence about their own financial well-being after the training.

鈥淲e have teachers who report that they’re going to pay down unsecured debt because they didn’t really understand how the compound interest was working against them. And at the same time, they’re learning how compound interest works for them when they’re investing,鈥� Wheat said.

The number of financial decisions that students have to make increases during and especially after high school. Meanwhile, the report found most parents do not feel financially savvy enough to discuss financial matters with their children at home, leaving schools to foot the education bill.

The report found large disparities in financial capability among different groups in the United States. According to the report, without state requirements for a standalone course, schools with higher fractions of students of color are less likely to have access to a required personal finance courses or content.

Along with covering student loans and financial aid, Ogede said her students learn the importance of investing and managing their credit. They complete an extra credit project with students from Duke University by way of the program, where they decide how to split $100 between stocks, bonds, and companies that they have a personal interest in. At the end of the course, they get the $100 transferred to their personal name.

鈥淚n America, wealth is connected with your credit score, because if they don’t have a good credit score, you’re going to get a higher interest rate,鈥� Ogede said. 鈥淵ou’ll find that most of the time, there are parents that passed knowledge back to them, you know, there are grandparents who invested, and they and the parents invested, and they taught the children. Now, when you come to the Brown and Black population, it was not their history, because they didn’t grow up in that, it wasn’t passed down to them that way.鈥�

Wheat said that the financial landscape has become more complex, causing more concerns for students.

鈥淵ou know, it wasn’t too long ago that people would go to work for a company and work 25 or 30 years and retire with a pension and live happily ever after. With the reduction in corporate benefits, people are more and more responsible for their own financial futures,鈥� Wheat said.

鈥淧eople can鈥檛 do the right thing if they don鈥檛 know what the right thing is.鈥�

Wheat said she believes that offering a personal finance course is another way for teachers to focus on what their communities need the most.

鈥淚 mean, think about if you’re navigating a ship with a compass, and you alter it by one degree, you’re going to wind up somewhere completely different than you intended to go or then you were bound for,鈥� Wheat said. 鈥淪o if you can take students that are thinking of dropping out of school, and you can convince them that their earning power is going to increase if they’ll just stay in school, then that’s a win. If you’ve gotten them to graduate, but then you have students who they’re going to graduate, but then what? This course gives them the opportunity to explore what’s next after school.”

Teachers who went through the training with NCCEE gave positive feedback. Wheat said students never ask teachers, “How will I use this in real life?”

To learn more about financial literacy requirements in the state of North Carolina, read the education standards

This first appeared on and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

In a new survey released Tuesday by , a Massachusetts-based think tank focused on public engagement, respondents ranked preparation for college or university nearly at the bottom of their priorities for schools: 47th out of 57 overall.

As recently as 2019, prepping for college ranked No. 10 nationwide, just below learning 鈥渇rom exposure to different ideas and beliefs.鈥� That priority also dropped a bit, to No. 27.

Instead, the findings show, Americans now want something very different from K-12 education: a concentrated focus on 鈥減ractical, tangible skills鈥� such as managing one鈥檚 personal finances, preparing meals and making appointments. Such outcomes now rank as Americans鈥� No. 1 educational priority.

Top 10 Purpose of Education Rankings

鈥淚 think the takeaway is: The American public wants ‘different,’ not just ‘better’ from education,鈥� said Todd Rose, a former Harvard University scholar and Populace鈥檚 CEO and co-founder. 鈥淚t’s pretty clear that there’s a different set of outcomes that they are expecting.鈥�

While college prep should be an option, he said, the data show that 鈥渋t certainly can’t be the point鈥� of K-12 education going forward. 

Part of that shift comes as Americans realize the diminishing economic value of both a high school diploma and a college degree, Rose said.

A college degree, he said, has always been viewed as a key path to a better, more high-paying career. 鈥淚t’s not clear that that value is there from college anymore. So then when you pile on the outrageous cost 鈥� and the debt you’re incurring, it’s just not true. The value proposition isn鈥檛 there anymore.鈥�

So it鈥檚 natural for the public to look to K-12 schools for other, more practical priorities, he said.

To be fair, this particular set of skills, with its real-world focus, has sat atop the Populace scale since 2019, along with aspirations that students learn to think critically, 鈥渄emonstrate character,鈥� and do basic reading, writing and arithmetic.

But the precipitous fall of college prep is significant 鈥� and widespread. Actually, respondents with college degrees were nearly as likely as high school graduates or even dropouts to give college prep a low priority score: It ranked 48th for college graduates, vs. 49th for high school graduates and dropouts. The figure was slightly higher 鈥� 39th for those with graduate degrees.

To Rose, that finding suggests a 鈥渂roader zeitgeist shift鈥� about college, one coming even from its graduates, who believe that in its current state, 鈥淭his thing is untenable. It鈥檚 just too expensive.鈥�

The survey of 1,010 adults was conducted Sept. 12-30. Pollsters also surveyed 1,087 parents separately. Researchers asked participants to imagine rebuilding our K-12 education system 鈥渆ntirely from scratch based on the purpose of education as you define it.鈥� Then it set out pairs of priorities that participants ranked.

The data on college preparation suggest that the drop is driven largely by attitudes about higher education among one large group: White respondents, who placed it 46th overall in 2022. By contrast, Black and Hispanic respondents both placed it near the middle of the pack, 22nd out of 57 priorities. Asian respondents placed it relatively high at 9th place.

Even before the pandemic, attitudes about college-going were beginning to fray, research suggests. In 2019, the found that only half of American adults believed colleges and universities 鈥渁re having a positive effect on the way things are going in the country.鈥� Nearly 4 in 10, or 38%, said colleges were having a negative impact, up from 26% in 2012.

Rising college costs are, of course, a big factor: At public four-year colleges in 2020, average tuition and fees were than in 2010, according to the U.S. Education Department. 

The rise in negative views, Pew said, arose 鈥渁lmost entirely鈥� from Republicans and independents who lean Republican, with 59% saying colleges have a negative effect on the nation.

Overall, undergraduate between 2009 and 2020, according to the department, from 17.5 million students to 15.9 million. But it鈥檚 expected , to 17.1 million students by 2030.

Rose said even the oft-invoked culture wars over 鈥渋ndoctrination鈥� of college students may actually be a function of higher education鈥檚 larger failures. 鈥淚f college was still delivering on the value proposition, of the kind of careers that make for your little slice of the American dream, I don’t know that anyone cares鈥� about indoctrination, he said.

More Rankings of Note

As for priorities in the Populace survey broken down by race, the results reveal a few interesting details: White respondents鈥� top priority was for schools to teach 鈥減ractical, tangible skills鈥� 鈥� managing finances, preparing meals and the like. In that sense, they basically track with mainstream priorities.

By contrast, Black respondents鈥� No. 1 priority was thinking critically, while for Hispanic respondents it was allowing students to advance in school 鈥渋f they meet minimum grade requirements.鈥�

Asian respondents鈥� top priority: Giving all students 鈥渢he option to choose the courses they want to study based on interests and aspirations.鈥� That indicator actually fell in importance overall, from No. 2 in 2019 to No. 9 in 2022.

Another big change since 2019: Americans now 颅颅largely distrust standardized tests, prioritizing how a student ranks against others on such exams even lower than college prep: 49th out of 57 priorities. They鈥檙e much more likely to prioritize teacher-administered exams, projects or 鈥減erformance in real-world applications,鈥� according to the survey.

And they have a new-found appreciation for mastery learning: The idea that 鈥淪tudents advance once they have demonstrated mastery of a subject鈥� jumped from 30th out of 57 priorities in 2019 to 7th in 2022.

Part of that is doubtless due to the forced homeschooling that millions of families found themselves taking part in during the spring of 2020, Rose said. That changed families鈥� priorities about the purpose of schooling, almost overnight. 

鈥�The pandemic affected our experience with education,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t put kids back in the home, with parents who watched their kids learn online, if at all. And like most public shocks to systems, it tends to lead to a rethinking: 鈥榃hat is it that matters to us?鈥欌��

For these families, the experience taught them, 鈥淚t’s not simply, 鈥楬ow do we get kids better test scores and get them into college?鈥欌�� Going forward, Rose said, 鈥淭hat is not going to be good enough.鈥�

Disclosure: Walton Family Foundation and Stand Together Trust provide financial support to Populace and 麻豆精品.