Common Core Resources

Here are my favorite common core resources:

• The Common Core State Standards Initiative
• ASCD Common Core State Standards
• Library of Congress Common Core Resource Center 
• EduCore
• MoneyAsYouLearn
• Council for Economic Education

Here are my four favorite posts which share a collection of common core resources:

• CybaryMan 
• Edutopia
• Larry Ferlazzo
• Always Prepped 

The United States of Financial and Economic Literacy

The Council for Economic Education has done a terrific job in the past year pulling together this basket of advocacy resources. Their resources include a wide variety multimedia such as the video above and this student debt calculator. They have gone as far as having a dedicated staff member to government affairs and partnership projects, Mary Blanusa, who is a tremendous connector and wealth of advocacy knowledge.

I blogged about this advocacy toolkit earlier, prior to stumbling across this video from a tweet from Gracie Rios Morales of the Federal Reserve.

Special education children deserve a financial education too

I am excited to announce that Discover Financial Services has awarded us (Reading Community Schools) a $60,000 grant to cover the cost of implementing a financial education course specifically for special education and special needs children into our curriculum. The grant is part of Discover’s Pathway to Financial Success program, a five-year, $10 million investment to bring financial education curriculum into public high schools across the country.

Receiving the Discover Financial Services Pathway to Financial Success Grant is a tremendous opportunity for Reading Community Schools to add to our financial literacy program. We already have such a strong curriculum and this will enable us to expand this successful program for special education children.

Comprehensive financial literacy coursework for special education/special needs children for a semester long class does not exist. Since being awarded the Discover Grant, I have begun working closely with national experts to pull together the course-writing team. Doug Young with the Council for Economic Education, a partner in the project, connected me to Michael Roush, the National Program Director for the National Disability Institute. Laura Levine, the Executive Director of Jump$tart, has also been helpful in the process. Chris Shannon, who has written coursework for NEFE and VISA, will be involved in writing the coursework. I have also allocated funds to purchase a full computer lab.

Our collective goal is to write standards and course lessons that will be incorporated in special education classrooms across the country. The generosity of Discover will impact Reading kids, and kids throughout the nation. We are honored to be the first educators to tackle this special project.

My district made the commitment three years ago to mandate a stand-alone course in Personal Finance to graduate, and began to offer a unit of Personal Finance in the middle school. In addition, personal finance and economic strands are being taught in our elementary buildings coupled with experiential elementary programs such as UC's Economic Center STEP program and the Stock Market Game. What was missing was a robust and inclusive financial literacy course specifically designed for special education and special needs children.

Statistics show that a majority of Americans lack the knowledge to make good financial decisions. Eight-four percent of high school students say they need more education on financial management topics, and the Department of the Treasury reported that graduates of high schools in which personal financial education is offered achieve higher savings rates and net worth than those graduating in states where financial education is not mandated.

Character Counts

Imagine opening a parent-teacher conference with “Let’s discuss your child’s character.” The first time I heard this prompt was a few weeks ago at the PwC KWHS Seminar for High School Educators on Business and Financial Responsibility. The presentation was an attempt to tie in character traits to financial behavior. The presenter used the KIPP Character Report Card as the foundation for his presentation, which emphasized the content area I teach.

Earlier in the year I wrote an opinion piece for the Washington Post on the dangers of not teaching personal finance to kids. These frightening statistics illustrate the consequences of not equipping our students with basic personal finance tools and concepts — and Americans know it. Eighty-two percent of American parents agree that personal finance should be a graduation requirement, and 89% of teachers feel the same way.

Personal finance is still in the infancy stages of development in our schools. A challenge of teaching the course well is preparing students to put knowledge into action. I enjoy using games and simulations to bridge content with behavior, I even created my own. Although I have yet to assign a grade to the character traits sometimes necessary to making an understood financial choice as KIPP does.

Relative to personal finance, the character traits discussed at the seminar that stood out for me were grit, self-control, and kindness. Grit is defined as the ability to finish what one starts; complete something despite obstacles; a combination of persistence and resilience. Self-control is defined as the ability to regulate what one feels and does; being self-disciplined. Kindness is defined as doing favors and good deeds for others; helping them; taking care of them.

You need grit to balance a budget on poverty wages. It takes grit to manage job losses or deaths in the family. It takes self-control to restrain from using your credit card to buy something now you really cannot afford. You need self-control, which as you can see in this video is not always innate, to save and wait to buy something later. Living a family budget that prioritizes other members of your family before yourself takes genuine kindness.

Teaching to the whole child is challenging and personal. Most would agree that someone’s character is one of the most important factors in their own success. At a minimum, our students should understand what character traits are necessary to reach their goals. So although a character report card may not feel right to me, neither does an education that all together avoids developing a student’s character. 

The Fed's EconWise iPad App

The excellent economic analysis you expect, now with the advantages of a free mobile app.

EconWise opens the door to the economic publications of the St. Louis Fed—wherever you go. You’ll find unbiased content, expert research, and down-to-earth commentary in the fields of macroeconomics, microeconomics, monetary policy, banking, finance, and personal finance. Easily sort and search through the publications in several different ways. New content is added frequently. The St. Louis Fed is pleased to continue its history of publishing a wide range of economic analysis, with the aim of helping readers better understand economic concepts and make better decisions. 

Source: http://research.stlouisfed.org/apps/econwise/

Click here for the link to the app store.

Why I'm interested in MindBlownLabs

I just pledged to help fund an innovative financial literacy solution, called Mindblown Life (MBL). Jason Young, a friend of mine and fellow Milken Winner has been working on this for a while now.

MBL is a mobile game/app that will empower millions of young people with critical money management skills. Jason's team is raising funds to launch MBL through Kickstarter, an online platform that allows people with creative projects to raise money from their extended networks.

I am interested in MindBlown because I am eager to find solutions to bridging financial content to financial behavior, and using game-based learning as a method of doing it. 

Click here if you are interested in learning more and/or contributing.

Tools to advocate for financial literacy

I often hear fellow educators discuss how we can advocate for requirements in personal finance instruction and coursework. A matter of fact, this NEFE study found that 89 percent of teachers agree or strongly agree that students should take a financial literacy course or pass a test for high school graduation.

I am honored to be a member of the Council for Economic Education GATE Teacher Advisory Board. In yesterday's meeting I was informed of their dedicated tool-kit and area on their website that provides educators with the tools they need to be legislative advocates.

Click here for the Council on Economic Education dedicated webpage on advocacy.

Click here for the Council on Economic Education Advocacy Tool Kit.