Finance class may be added to curriculum
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States that have already passed such a bill include Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Missouri, South Dakota and Utah.
The board is expected to pass the legislation, particularly since statistics show Tennessee has one of the highest numbers of bankruptcy filings in the nation, and Tennessee students reportedly scored lower than the national average on a personal finance test.
According to a 2006 survey by JumpStart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy, only 29.8 percent of Tennessee students who took a financial literacy test passed it. The test covered a variety of topics such as money management, savings and debt. Nationally 38 percent of students taking the test passed it.
Warren County Director of Schools Dr. Jerry Hale says the school system offers classes which touch on economic issues, but nothing that is directly related to personal finance.
‘We have some classes, like business accounting, that are career technical classes,’ Hale said. ‘But this concept in this setting would be new.’
Hale says he understands the reasoning behind the move, and like most, expects the board will probably approve it.
‘It’s on the state board agenda for next Friday,’ Hale said. ‘If they pass it at some point, it will become a required class. And I can see, with all the foreclosures and bankruptcies, and just generally people becoming so heavily indebted, along with high credit card rates, that some people get in trouble before they realize it. That’s the premise behind requiring the class.’
But Hale also pointed out this will be another required class in an already crowded curriculum.
‘I think the concept of the class is a very good thing,’ Hale said. ‘Of course, there again you’re adding another class that you’re trying to fit into a very busy course of study. If you put something new in, then you’re leaving something else out. But the concept is good.’
Director of instruction Bobby Cox says this class is just part of an effort to improve the curriculum in general.
‘The personal finance curriculum they’ve talked about is part of upping the requirements as part of this Tennessee Diploma Project,’ Cox said. ‘Revitalizing high schools, I guess you could say, adding personal finance, adding another physical education or health course, and also a fourth math requirement.
‘One of the things they’re doing now is revising our curriculum in the core content areas. We’ve heard rumors they’re going to change the graduation requirements from 20 credits to 22 credits, and put in the fourth math, a semester of personal finance, and another semester of health and wellness,’ Cox said. ‘We’ve heard about the personal finance requirement, but we haven’t gotten any directive about when that’s going to take place.’
Cox says he also understands the need for today’s students to know more about economic issues, and noted the system already has a required economics class.
‘We live in a global economy,’ Cox said, ‘and our students need to know how this affects them. So that personal finance course, teaching them how to manage money, and things of that type, I think would be a lifelong benefit to them.’
The school system has actually made an effort to fit in at least some direct instruction on these issues by inviting employees of local financial institutions to teach short courses in personal finance during the regular school year. One such class, taught jointly by Security Federal Savings senior vice president Ken Martin and bank vice president and trust officer Shannon Haston, has been instructing students on how to handle their credit and other banking issues for 13 years.