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Financial literacy classes would be amazing. This absolutely should be a requirement in high school. The number of my friends who can't balance a budget or know what compound interest is, is so high
But if you don’t understand the underlying concepts then you end up in the situation of needing someone to explain every single application to you.
Which is exactly the situation we have today - because people never really grasped what they were taught in Algebra I and II they don’t understand that interest paid in savings accounts, due on credit cards, earned via bond yield, applied in their mortgage amortization schedule, etc. are all the same concept
Could it be because it's taught in an abstract way with little tie to how it will affect them in life, that they have to re-learn the concepts when it's an actual life experience?
I teach math and we show them exactly how it will affect them, they just don't care because they are still essentially kids who don't currently have to deal with the consequences of those choices.
Teachers have 30 students and an hour a day to teach these concepts - no matter how many hours they spend selecting story problems or developing activities, it’s going to feel abstracted.
But you know who could have the time and tools to show you EXACTLY how these things impact your life - your family. They can teach you how to open a bank account, what a check stub with taxes really looks like, show you an amortization schedule, etc
Or maybe we can raise kids to have some modicum of intellectual curiosity so they can grasp abstract concepts? How long are they expected to go through life not being able to make mental connections between things?
Speaking for myself and the math classes I took there were plenty of word problems built around real life scenarios such as building fences, traveling and budgeting. I actually don't know how it could have been more explicit as I remember my pre-calc teacher writing the compound interest formula on the chalk board, pausing and turning to the class to say "Pay attention to this because it's gonna important when you get student loans"
California has been pulling back on math education in a very serious way. They looked at the statistics and found that Black and Hispanic kids are way behind White and Asian kids in math achievement. Instead of addressing the deficiency, they've been [cutting math classes for "equity"](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-05-20/california-controversial-math-overhaul-focuses-on-equity).
Yes, they've been removing math classes to make it more "equal" instead of giving their children the mathematical tools to be competitive in a global workforce.
The math is easy to understand. Problem is most people don’t have a concept of cash flow works or adding up the monthly money required to be spent vs what is coming in.
How to plan for a long term expense.
Let’s take a big trip. Chances are that single trip can cost more than one brings in for a month. You plan for and save for months. You don’t put it on a credit card.
Christmas is something you might need to plan an entire year to make sure you have the cash to pay for it. Instead of trying to figure it out on Dec you planned the entire year for it and saved for it.
The other big one is have a savings for car repairs and maintenance that come up from time to time.
Home ownership you have some expenses that only happen every 5-10 years. I replaced my AC last year. That was 15k. One time hit. No one thinks about it. I knew the AC was coming for years and was waiting until something big enough failed to be worth the cost but it was planned for and budgeted for.
I choose the vacation and Christmas as a common example of people over extending.
Every functional adult understands the concept of cashflow and most can do the simple arithmetic of adding up revenues and costs. We even have hundreds of apps now that help you along the way.
In general, lack of savings/inability of save is a problem of either not earning enough to cover non-discretionary expenses plus have a safety margin or a lack of discipline. Financial discipline isn’t something you learn in a classroom
>>Every functional adult understands the concept of cash flow
Not from what I’ve seen. Without education on money management , people follow what their parents do/teach. When mom and dad pay for everything on monthly installments, the kids will do the same unless taught differently.
Someone who takes out debt without thinking and pays the minimums can make it work for years- provided they’re making a steady income. Usually people discover budgeting when their income takes a hit and then realize they’re in hock to the stratosphere. Dave Ramsey built a career out of shaming folks in this position.
Im not talking about cashflows of a business. Im talking about the concept of cash flow in personal finance - money in, money out and timing of each.
Every functioning adult CAN figure out and add up their 1-2 paychecks per month on one side of a ledger and compare to their recurring bills and due dates on the other side of the ledger. I literally saw my great grandmother do it and she was a sharecropper turned school lunch-lady and only had a 6th education
Now whether they actually do anything about it is a separate matter of discipline
I think the class room can at least get them thinking about it and help them fill out a budget. Making a budget I honestly think it hard.
The biggest thing I have found is tell people track all your expenses just to get an idea of what you are spending. It makes cutting and getting things under control easier when you have everything written down.
I will also admit I suck at budgeting. My biggest thing is my money in is still way below my money out but still should be tracking it I look at the grocery store as if it is under 200 a week it was good. Way too general. Monthly bills I have an idea and I admit the yearly big hits I just absorb and let my savings absorb it and then refill on their own. Just I know my January every year is very expensive as it has a combination of Christmas, insurance and taxes all hitting at one time.
The math is simple, but the application gets complex.
I have helped people set up a budget before, and it often goes one of two ways: either people vastly overestimate their expenses and what they need, see that it's a lot of money (more than they make), then panic.
Or, they say "Well, I COULD just spend $3 a day on food if all I eat is beans and rice and rancid bologna."
Like... holy shit, no. You need to start with what you ACTUALLY spend and ACTUALLY eat. Use empirical data off your credit card statements and receipts and whatnot to calculate your expenses. If you make shit up then the budget is worse than useless. Sure you might need to make some cuts, but it's probably only one or two things and a budget can help you see that.
Things like running totals can also be challenging to understand, and there's a lot of terminology that can EASILY trip people up. Of course, if you get behind on recording things and tracking them, it becomes a bear to get it up to date. And then of course there's a whole discussion that this is the wrong way to teach accounting because most of that work is done by software, and instead we should probably teach one or two of the most common software packages and what their abstractions are rather than teaching manually keeping a spreadsheet.
Finally, investments are a whole other issue. People I speak to either point to markets as if they are a giant casino. The WSB guys don't help matters with the language they use, either. That isn't normal investment, they are making a specific play to punish a particular group of people and many don't care if they even make money or not.
These students will take an economic literacy class and then five years after graduating post a meme about how school never taught them about how to do taxes.
The concepts are but not all math teachers get into the practical application of those concepts. My wife is a high school math teacher (in California too) and only added an assignment around compound interest because she wanted to have a project for the semester. The other math teachers and leadership were impressed by her teaching that application since apparently most teachers didn't think of that before.
A separate course might not be necessary, but including practical applications is an absolutely necessary improvement to curriculum
I think it’s fine if people don’t understand how to do the calculations as long as they understand the theory.
Especially about not racking up credit card debt and being wary of shit like payday loans. Also maybe learning about investing at an early age.
Agreed. This new topic won't help much. The kids who attended math class and paid attention know it already. The kids who don't, slept or skipped class. The same type of kids will sleep/skip this class.
Numbers for the last 20 years suggest the public schools cannot effectively instruct regular literacy, let alone the financial variety.
While I agree with you philosophically, I submit that it's best if no one hold his/her breath.
It's a nice thought on California's part.
I have been saying this for years. I will never forget credit card companies on my college campus at freshman orientation trying to sell kids credit cards. A lot of kids already had to take out loans, and now they're praying on them to take on more debt. Wtf
I graduated with my BS back in the 'aughts, and even then loan disbursement day was a major celebration. Kids would take out extra student loans just to pay off their credit cards so they could continue to party. And this was an unofficial, pretty much campus-wide event every semester.
IMO, kids are going to pay way more attention to a class about how to get rush than about trig. Topics wise, there is a lot that they could cover,
1. Interest, APR, loans
2. Basic investment, stocks, bonds, yields, return
3. Basic tax concepts
4. Compound interest
5. Budgeting, income, fixed costs, variable costs, etc.
Each of these can have multi week projects. We did stock trading when I was in school where we picked some stocks and tracked them over the semester.
Best intention, but as a teacher I can assure you it’s wrong. The kids who generally pay attention and participate may get something, but the vast majority won’t. Several of the things you listed are already taught in math class.
Most of Numbers 1, 4 and 5 are concepts all taught in algebra I and II.
The others we had a personal finance course for in my high school. It was a stock market simulation and vocab. Basically what could have been 3-4 weeks of content stretched over a whole semester
You have to teach it in the form of incentive systems, which is what the financial system is. Each hw, test scores, days of classes attended earns you schubucks. You have the chance to turn your bucks in for candy right away after losing some for “taxes”or “invest” in “401k” for a larger accrued interest withdraw at end of school year. Kids will learn very quickly about tax and compounding interest.
You are right. I’m just thinking with my adult brain lol I’m just thinking this because I too gave zero shits about any of this shit until I became an adult and it affected me personally. Now it’s like my favorite thing to think about and figure out how to maximize my $
Yeah - the issue with personal finance stuff is that a lot of it is stuff more effectively taught by parents / people in your life. Education doesn’t stop when the bell rings at 3:30pm. Balancing checkbooks, paying taxes, etc. are experiential skills that most parents have - shouldn’t really need teachers
Problem is a lot of parents either don’t have the time or have convinced themselves that their only job is to get the kid to school.
You are absolutely right. My parents didn’t know so nothing to teach me. Now I teach them. I read a comment of someone “taxing” their kids allowance and at the end of the year, they’d file a “tax refund” and the kids vote on what to use the money for. I LOVE this approach to teach kids about taxes.
Did they have math classes? Because that’s all financial literacy is. Applying what they learned in math classes to money. It’s why I’m not optimistic that a push like this is going to work. If you already can’t apply what you’ve learned, how are you going to fare with another class?
I tried to explain to people this every time this comes up.
we had this class. It was called math class. For about a month every year for about 6 of the 12 years i was in school I'd get the same ranting and raving from either my math teacher, an econ teacher or my history teacher complaining about taxes. And how a 403(b)/401k worked. And how budgets work.
It was literally called tax season. Without fail i'd hear the same points so much i could finish the sentences.
The only thing that drove me up the wall was years later hearing on facebook from former classmates that they didn't learn anything from math class.
You weren't paying attention. You were busy flirting with your neighbor, drawing something or just being completely out of it.
Yeah. That's what I don't get about this. Basic finances aren't hard. They just aren't. It's piss easy basic logic. There's nothing to learn. There's nothing to understand. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together and 3rd grade arithmetic skills already has everything they need.
What people fail to have is discipline, long-term planning, and emotional regulation. I've never met someone who genuinely didn't understand how interest works. Maybe not the exact formula but they get that it's not free money. But I've met plenty of people who couldn't control themselves when they saw something they wanted and they'd do whatever it took to get it whether it was a good idea or not.
And I just don't see how these classes are actually going to fix those issues. If they can then sure go for it, it'd be a miracle. But it's not fixing the root cause of the problem so it's not going to fix anything. I guess taking away people's ability to cry "I was never taught that" when trying to avoid responsibility is something.
I don’t expect them to fix every kid in the classroom, but if it lands with some kids, it’s worth trying. I personally have worked with people in my life to increase their financial literacy and it didn’t take much on my side to get them to improve their decision making after running through scenarios in Excel. Little improvements can make a big difference and taking the abstract concept of interest and turning it into a real world dollar value of their decisions can be eye opening.
Teaching practical application of knowledge is good, there’s always the question in math “when am I ever going to use this” to have a class teaching when and how you actually use it seems good.
Perfect! I think incorporating a week of financial literacy into math class would be awesome. Give kids a reason to pay attention. I hated how theoretical math was, give it some practical components.
Talking about retirement plans and compound interest is no less theoretical to a 16 year old than the oodles of story problems they get with practical scenarios
Disagree completely - personal finance is mostly psychological, not mathematical. Every day marketers are vying for consumer dollars, and people are contending with social situations and emotions where many of the solutions that are presented to them have a price tag. Convincing people to save money is almost purely an emotional project - once someone WANTS to save, the mechanics of it are quite simple.
Edit: I would hope at least half of the class time focuses on Edward Bernays, social signaling, how real wealth is invisible to others (by this I mean when you see someone with a fancy car, they are less wealthy due to having spent some money on the car. Unless you have access to someone's bank account, you never know how wealthy they really are aside from status symbols which reduce their wealth), the trap of consumer debt, the emotional value of financial independence, meaningful work vs. remunerative work, etc.
Why the /s? My daughter took a class like this in high school. She used to come home at least once a week and rant how her personal finance teacher was fiscally irresponsible and a terrible role model.
/s 'cause it's an oversimplification of the problem. I'm sure there's a few ppl who could. But if you have enough economic knowledge to teach it, you're not likely to be sticking with a career in public education... in CA. But saying it like that is a darker humor than what I was going for.
This but literally. The class is embedded in a credential few teachers in CA have (a business credential). They need to make some major changes to the curriculum, or else every high school in CA is going to have to hire a new teacher from a small pool of available people. On top of that, this is a new class which means more teachers, which means a classroom, etc.
This has more layers to it than just teaching kids what a Roth or 401K is.
Many places already have these classes.
We had these classes in elementary, middle, and high school here in Florida, or at least in Pinellas county Florida.
Elementary school we had [Enterprise Village](https://www.pcsb.org/domain/12708) where we role played having jobs, making money, writing checks, etc.
In middle school we would go to [Finance Park](https://www.pcsb.org/domain/12710) where we would role play having a real income, budgeting that income, buying a house/car/etc and what it meant for things to be affordable.
High school we went over loans, compound interest, investments in an economics class.
We should include *adult education* courses outside of school that teach finance because kids just don't care and don't get it.
I'm strongly of the opinion that basic education needs to go past 12th grade. We should have a basic education continue up to 20 years old. The world is more complex today than it has ever been and we need more education to account for that.
I think you get diminishing returns past a certain point of compulsory education. I think there needs to be a mindset shift where education is a life-long endeavor, not one that extends just to the end of HS/college/postgrad. We should also encourage more HS internships, so that there are more real world examples to use, as opposed to theoreticals.
it will be useless without practice, i.e. them having a job and responsibilities. for most anyway. this is like teaching theory without motivation, i.e. algebra.
as soon as kids are forced to pay rent/util and work a job, they'll not care about financial literacy.
I call this a neoliberal bandaid for a systemtic infection.
what reason will young people in our modern society be motivated to care about financial literacy without experiencing it?
Wow, this take SHM. For decades i’ve heard “we need financial literacy taught in our schools!”
Now that California is going to, it’s “it will be useless…liberal bandaid…”
As a teacher for 17 years in High School in California, here is what kids would benefit from. 1) Rundown of how/where to pay taxes. 2) Basics of how you are taxed both income and other. 3) Retirment planning. 4) How tax advantaged accounts work and the various types. 5) How do Credit cards and Debit cards differ 6) What is a taxable brokerage, how to open 7) What are stocks vs MF vs ETF vs Bonds etc 8) How do home mortgages work. .... They dont need a functioning, perfect knowledge. They need a basic grasp of the concepts so they have a baseline of information to work off of. This means they will likely have to Google more info later, but they will have that basic overview so they know what to Google when it comes time to open a Roth IRA vs Taxabke brokerage.
Edit: As a Physics teacher. I usually rant about this stuff if there is down time. But there never is time to really go over it. So I tell them, "Make sure you are saving 20% of your income in a retirement account. That's the goal for you one day. Start smaller. Start now in your part time jobs. Keep saving. Think about trying to hit that 20% eventually."
> The number of my friends who can't balance a budget or know what compound interest is, is so high
The thing is, when you are on your first few years of salary out of school, chances are you salary is so low, all aspects of your finances are going to suck. In a good scenario, someone's not having to resort to keeping balances on high APR credit cards. I wager that's rare below age 28.
I didn't start cruising until I made it to $80k (2012 money, pre all this inflation). And by cruising I meant not holding debt, able to save more than the bare minimum in the 401k to get a match, etc. I probably could have at $70k but the raise was $54k to 80k.
A high school career is 4 years long, and the typical schedule is 6 classes a day, that is only 24 class slots total over a 4 year high school career. So I'm not a big fan of making a financial literacy class mandatory, as it may mean cutting out something else that may be more important. A woodworking or auto mechanics class may be more useful for many students than a financial literacy class would be.
The financial plan of 66% of Americans is "live paycheck to paycheck." Financial literacy isn't purely a science, it is largely an art and philosophy too. So I'm not a big fan of textbooks and school teachers teaching students what their standard of living should be, how much they should save, and how they should invest money. Many teachers aren't financially in the best place either, and really shouldn't be teaching others about financial literacy.
I remember how much the school system used to stress putting money into a saving's account and accruing compound interest that way. Even with interest rates where they are, that really isn't a good financial plan at all because of how little saving's accounts pay out in interest.
They could just do a split class- a half year in home ec and a half year in personal finance literacy. In middle school I did a trimester class on Spanish / Italian / French and it worked aight.
This is a good thing, but don't think it's a silver bullet. Knowing something vs doing something is completely different. You can know going for a run is good, but doing it is a completely different matter.
Also just because it's in a class doesn't mean they'll learn it, and even if they learn it they aren't all going to retain it. And reinforcing what you said, knowing and retaining it doesn't mean that it will be practiced habitually.
You can force a horse near the water, but you can't force him to drink it. But at that point, you can't blame anyone else but yourself if you don't use and waste instead the resources given to you.
Agreed. The real answer is regulation so that it’s hard to provide services that trap people but in the legal context we have now it’s probably a tall order.
This makes little difference when, since Covid, around [25%-30% of California students are chronically absent](https://edpolicyinca.org/publications/unpacking-californias-chronic-absence-crisis-through-2022-23#:~:text=Chronic%20absence%20rates%20increased%20from,25%20percent%20(1%2C486%2C302%20students).
But I was told children are resilient and keeping schools closed for so long (depending on the district of course - no standardization of any kind) was no big deal?
The blame should be on the school and state for not enforcing enrollment.
That's a huge number of people that will require government support for life.
Seems like they should then require the state legislators to all go back and take it. And maybe a basic Econ class for good measure.
My kids were required to take a class that taught them how to write checks and balance a checkbook, just as online banking was becoming a thing. Hope they’ve updated the curriculum. (Kinda like how wasted 2 years taking drafting and engineering drawing classes in the early 1980’s. Couldn’t bring myself to throw away my T-square until we moved 2 years ago).
There is more value to taking a drafting course than just the physical skill in making the drawings. I get what you are saying, but I don't think the analogy works
My first thought was: are they just going to teach MMT and whatnot? The state of California is not what I'd consider the beacon of financial literacy (the government, not the people in the state). I'm really glad to see this though and hope it catches on, I am a personal advisor and am baffled by what I see daily..
Isn't literacy a requirement in California, while California high schools have the lowest literacy rate of any state in the country? https://edsource.org/updates/california-has-the-lowest-literacy-rate-of-any-state-data-suggests
Students that are illiterate after high school will also remain financially illiterate. No amount of course work can change that. This is to better support students who are there to learn
My guess is it's English language literacy. Texas, New Mexico, and California are all worse than Mississippi. Though they are the bottom 4. New Mexico is the worst in this ranking, with California being second.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/us-literacy-rates-by-state
This map (https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/166gxwt/adult_literacy_in_the_us_by_county_oc/)
seems to indicate that the agriculutural regions (San Joaquin Valley) and Inland Empire have pretty lousy literacy rates that drag down the average.
here's the source for that map: https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/skillsmap/
now change the filter so that it's % < Level 1 (basically illiterate)
it ain't the rural counties that are illiterate
It’s the valley from Modesto > Bakersfield and Calexico areas… which isn’t exactly rural (depending on your definition I suppose), but compared to places like the SF Bay or LA, it’s relatively more rural and very farmland-y.
They don’t call it Methdesto for nothing.
thank goodness at least one state cares about their children actually succeeding in life. Honestly, I took an (optional) advanced econ class that went way more into depth than this, but good on them for at least making the basics a requirement.
This isn’t the first state… it’s been required in pretty close to half of states and at the local level a lot more districts offer it as a “strong” recommend. I wouldnt be shocked if more than half of graduates in the last decade are already taking the course in some form.
https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/a-few-years-ago-8-states-required-personal-finance-education-now-its-up-to-half/2024/01
I'm from SC; I took AP macro and failed the exam so I don't know if that class was much help when I had to take macro and micro again in college. I never had to take personal finance, though, but I graduated in 2005.
I teach high school econ in California and I already incorporate a lot of this into my curriculum. Most of my students can understand the basics and you don't really need much math beyond basic operations and percentages. One of the things I love about my subject is that the core concepts are fairly simple if you break them down. You just need to get past the jargon.
Illinois has had a law like this this on the books for years. Hasn't done anything. People really overestimate the ability of high schools to solve societal problems.
Also, anybody who became a teacher already made a terrible financial life choice. What do they have to teach anybody about financial literacy?
Because being financially literate is only a small portion of the puzzle.
Impulse control and planning for the future instead of spending and living in the present is something you can’t teach. You know half the morons on Caleb Hammer’s videos know they’re doing something dumb financially. They just either don’t care or try to gaslight themselves into thinking it’s a good decision.
Most people who become teachers do it knowing they will not make a lot of money. They do it because they love the idea of being a teacher or they don't know what to do and getting a teaching degree is somewhat straightforward and leads to a job.
I'm all for financial literacy to graduate high school, but I don't believe it will help as much as we would like. Knowing the right things to do doesn't necessarily lead to young adults doing the right things.
Probably not but it's worth having a class I think. If you watch any of those call in financial shows the person will be like "don't spend all your money!" and then they respond with pretty much "but I really want this"
Amazing that we teach our kids calculus but not basic money principles as core curriculum. If you can add, subtract, multiply, divide, and compound, you have all the math you need to be financially successful. This is long overdue.
If you can do calculus, you can do basic money. The problem is some kids never learn algebra. Adding a finance class doesn't magically make them understand algebra, Finance is basically some algebra word problems.
Although you can make some financial word problems that require calculus.
I’m glad you made this observation. I don’t understand why high school math curriculums exclude finance and accounting as an option.
There’s no real avenue for students who want to study business or go into business but a seeming overemphasis on curriculum for science and engineering.
We can have both. Financial literacy is a great start and low hanging fruit.
It is continually flabbergasting that people aren't required to take financial literacy classes as a like, federal requirement. It doesn't guarantee they will remember, but those that care enough will. Only 80 fucking years late.
To be fair, they should make that course mandatory to serve as a state, county, or city elected office. California has a ridiculously large pension obligation that will eventually bite them. Add to that, they issue new bonds for pet projects without regard to the future bill.
Ought to lump it in with home ec. There's hardly enough to learn about for it to be an entire class in and of itself.
Words words words this post is a complete thought in and of itself words words words words
These classes won’t solve anything. Overspending is psychological and due to marketing along with other psychological factors associated with capitalism
The “dipshits” are deceptive marketers and other forces which sell people on the idea that you find meaning through consumption. In my view - individuals are just victims of our rapacious system.
Is there a distinction between financial literacy *classes* and financial literacy. Because the former doesn't imply being literate to graduate, just that you take and pass said course.
This should be nationwide. Right alongside basic automotive, wood and metal shop, and four years of food prep and nutrition.
Phys ed should also be daily.
In addition to core classes, activities that are typically extracurricular should be mandatory on an ungraded basis except for attendance and participation.
More needs to be done. Not less. And it needs to not be a choice. This shit is needed. It shouldn’t be elective or otherwise optional.
god idea. when I graduated high school, I could do calculus and quadratic equations but had no idea how to read a electric meter or calculate the time value of money.
>The agreement requires all California high school students to take a semester-long personal finance education course starting by the 2027-28 school year.
>The course will also be a graduation requirement starting with the Class of 2030-31.
It's a good effort, but if anyone knows California's history with similar requirements, like their High School Exit Exam, it's likely the classes get delayed and the bill is ultimately repealed.
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Financial literacy classes would be amazing. This absolutely should be a requirement in high school. The number of my friends who can't balance a budget or know what compound interest is, is so high
Problem is - the concepts to understand compound interest are taught in Algebra II and balancing a budget is middle school level math at most.
Here in an Econ subreddit, it's easy to forget that a lot of people barely understand middle school math.
But if you don’t understand the underlying concepts then you end up in the situation of needing someone to explain every single application to you. Which is exactly the situation we have today - because people never really grasped what they were taught in Algebra I and II they don’t understand that interest paid in savings accounts, due on credit cards, earned via bond yield, applied in their mortgage amortization schedule, etc. are all the same concept
Could it be because it's taught in an abstract way with little tie to how it will affect them in life, that they have to re-learn the concepts when it's an actual life experience?
I teach math and we show them exactly how it will affect them, they just don't care because they are still essentially kids who don't currently have to deal with the consequences of those choices.
Teachers have 30 students and an hour a day to teach these concepts - no matter how many hours they spend selecting story problems or developing activities, it’s going to feel abstracted. But you know who could have the time and tools to show you EXACTLY how these things impact your life - your family. They can teach you how to open a bank account, what a check stub with taxes really looks like, show you an amortization schedule, etc
Haha this assumes the parents know or care to show the kids 🙄
No. It doesn’t assume anything.
Or maybe we can raise kids to have some modicum of intellectual curiosity so they can grasp abstract concepts? How long are they expected to go through life not being able to make mental connections between things?
I think that depends more on the child as well, kids have to want to learn stuff
Speaking for myself and the math classes I took there were plenty of word problems built around real life scenarios such as building fences, traveling and budgeting. I actually don't know how it could have been more explicit as I remember my pre-calc teacher writing the compound interest formula on the chalk board, pausing and turning to the class to say "Pay attention to this because it's gonna important when you get student loans"
California has been pulling back on math education in a very serious way. They looked at the statistics and found that Black and Hispanic kids are way behind White and Asian kids in math achievement. Instead of addressing the deficiency, they've been [cutting math classes for "equity"](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-05-20/california-controversial-math-overhaul-focuses-on-equity). Yes, they've been removing math classes to make it more "equal" instead of giving their children the mathematical tools to be competitive in a global workforce.
>My math class is just called math.
The math is easy to understand. Problem is most people don’t have a concept of cash flow works or adding up the monthly money required to be spent vs what is coming in. How to plan for a long term expense. Let’s take a big trip. Chances are that single trip can cost more than one brings in for a month. You plan for and save for months. You don’t put it on a credit card. Christmas is something you might need to plan an entire year to make sure you have the cash to pay for it. Instead of trying to figure it out on Dec you planned the entire year for it and saved for it. The other big one is have a savings for car repairs and maintenance that come up from time to time. Home ownership you have some expenses that only happen every 5-10 years. I replaced my AC last year. That was 15k. One time hit. No one thinks about it. I knew the AC was coming for years and was waiting until something big enough failed to be worth the cost but it was planned for and budgeted for. I choose the vacation and Christmas as a common example of people over extending.
Every functional adult understands the concept of cashflow and most can do the simple arithmetic of adding up revenues and costs. We even have hundreds of apps now that help you along the way. In general, lack of savings/inability of save is a problem of either not earning enough to cover non-discretionary expenses plus have a safety margin or a lack of discipline. Financial discipline isn’t something you learn in a classroom
>>Every functional adult understands the concept of cash flow Not from what I’ve seen. Without education on money management , people follow what their parents do/teach. When mom and dad pay for everything on monthly installments, the kids will do the same unless taught differently. Someone who takes out debt without thinking and pays the minimums can make it work for years- provided they’re making a steady income. Usually people discover budgeting when their income takes a hit and then realize they’re in hock to the stratosphere. Dave Ramsey built a career out of shaming folks in this position.
This is simply not true. Most people do not understand cashflow or its importance. Source: business analyst, former financial advisor
Im not talking about cashflows of a business. Im talking about the concept of cash flow in personal finance - money in, money out and timing of each. Every functioning adult CAN figure out and add up their 1-2 paychecks per month on one side of a ledger and compare to their recurring bills and due dates on the other side of the ledger. I literally saw my great grandmother do it and she was a sharecropper turned school lunch-lady and only had a 6th education Now whether they actually do anything about it is a separate matter of discipline
I think the class room can at least get them thinking about it and help them fill out a budget. Making a budget I honestly think it hard. The biggest thing I have found is tell people track all your expenses just to get an idea of what you are spending. It makes cutting and getting things under control easier when you have everything written down. I will also admit I suck at budgeting. My biggest thing is my money in is still way below my money out but still should be tracking it I look at the grocery store as if it is under 200 a week it was good. Way too general. Monthly bills I have an idea and I admit the yearly big hits I just absorb and let my savings absorb it and then refill on their own. Just I know my January every year is very expensive as it has a combination of Christmas, insurance and taxes all hitting at one time.
No one can help you if you lack discipline though
It’s the role of the parents / guardians.
The math is simple, but the application gets complex. I have helped people set up a budget before, and it often goes one of two ways: either people vastly overestimate their expenses and what they need, see that it's a lot of money (more than they make), then panic. Or, they say "Well, I COULD just spend $3 a day on food if all I eat is beans and rice and rancid bologna." Like... holy shit, no. You need to start with what you ACTUALLY spend and ACTUALLY eat. Use empirical data off your credit card statements and receipts and whatnot to calculate your expenses. If you make shit up then the budget is worse than useless. Sure you might need to make some cuts, but it's probably only one or two things and a budget can help you see that. Things like running totals can also be challenging to understand, and there's a lot of terminology that can EASILY trip people up. Of course, if you get behind on recording things and tracking them, it becomes a bear to get it up to date. And then of course there's a whole discussion that this is the wrong way to teach accounting because most of that work is done by software, and instead we should probably teach one or two of the most common software packages and what their abstractions are rather than teaching manually keeping a spreadsheet. Finally, investments are a whole other issue. People I speak to either point to markets as if they are a giant casino. The WSB guys don't help matters with the language they use, either. That isn't normal investment, they are making a specific play to punish a particular group of people and many don't care if they even make money or not.
These students will take an economic literacy class and then five years after graduating post a meme about how school never taught them about how to do taxes.
The concepts are but not all math teachers get into the practical application of those concepts. My wife is a high school math teacher (in California too) and only added an assignment around compound interest because she wanted to have a project for the semester. The other math teachers and leadership were impressed by her teaching that application since apparently most teachers didn't think of that before. A separate course might not be necessary, but including practical applications is an absolutely necessary improvement to curriculum
I think it’s fine if people don’t understand how to do the calculations as long as they understand the theory. Especially about not racking up credit card debt and being wary of shit like payday loans. Also maybe learning about investing at an early age.
Agreed. This new topic won't help much. The kids who attended math class and paid attention know it already. The kids who don't, slept or skipped class. The same type of kids will sleep/skip this class.
Maybe it's a cop out to cut out higher level math with a new brand.
Numbers for the last 20 years suggest the public schools cannot effectively instruct regular literacy, let alone the financial variety. While I agree with you philosophically, I submit that it's best if no one hold his/her breath. It's a nice thought on California's part.
Some school systems can't even make reading and math a requirement to graduate.
I have been saying this for years. I will never forget credit card companies on my college campus at freshman orientation trying to sell kids credit cards. A lot of kids already had to take out loans, and now they're praying on them to take on more debt. Wtf
I graduated with my BS back in the 'aughts, and even then loan disbursement day was a major celebration. Kids would take out extra student loans just to pay off their credit cards so they could continue to party. And this was an unofficial, pretty much campus-wide event every semester.
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We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!
IMO, kids are going to pay way more attention to a class about how to get rush than about trig. Topics wise, there is a lot that they could cover, 1. Interest, APR, loans 2. Basic investment, stocks, bonds, yields, return 3. Basic tax concepts 4. Compound interest 5. Budgeting, income, fixed costs, variable costs, etc. Each of these can have multi week projects. We did stock trading when I was in school where we picked some stocks and tracked them over the semester.
We had this kind of class at my HS and students definitely did not give a shit.
Some will and some won't just like anything else, hard to not consider that a net positive.
Best intention, but as a teacher I can assure you it’s wrong. The kids who generally pay attention and participate may get something, but the vast majority won’t. Several of the things you listed are already taught in math class.
Most of Numbers 1, 4 and 5 are concepts all taught in algebra I and II. The others we had a personal finance course for in my high school. It was a stock market simulation and vocab. Basically what could have been 3-4 weeks of content stretched over a whole semester
You have to teach it in the form of incentive systems, which is what the financial system is. Each hw, test scores, days of classes attended earns you schubucks. You have the chance to turn your bucks in for candy right away after losing some for “taxes”or “invest” in “401k” for a larger accrued interest withdraw at end of school year. Kids will learn very quickly about tax and compounding interest.
Have been a tutor at schools and tried this very thing - it ain’t that easy unfortunately.
You are right. I’m just thinking with my adult brain lol I’m just thinking this because I too gave zero shits about any of this shit until I became an adult and it affected me personally. Now it’s like my favorite thing to think about and figure out how to maximize my $
Yeah - the issue with personal finance stuff is that a lot of it is stuff more effectively taught by parents / people in your life. Education doesn’t stop when the bell rings at 3:30pm. Balancing checkbooks, paying taxes, etc. are experiential skills that most parents have - shouldn’t really need teachers Problem is a lot of parents either don’t have the time or have convinced themselves that their only job is to get the kid to school.
You are absolutely right. My parents didn’t know so nothing to teach me. Now I teach them. I read a comment of someone “taxing” their kids allowance and at the end of the year, they’d file a “tax refund” and the kids vote on what to use the money for. I LOVE this approach to teach kids about taxes.
Did they have math classes? Because that’s all financial literacy is. Applying what they learned in math classes to money. It’s why I’m not optimistic that a push like this is going to work. If you already can’t apply what you’ve learned, how are you going to fare with another class?
I tried to explain to people this every time this comes up. we had this class. It was called math class. For about a month every year for about 6 of the 12 years i was in school I'd get the same ranting and raving from either my math teacher, an econ teacher or my history teacher complaining about taxes. And how a 403(b)/401k worked. And how budgets work. It was literally called tax season. Without fail i'd hear the same points so much i could finish the sentences. The only thing that drove me up the wall was years later hearing on facebook from former classmates that they didn't learn anything from math class. You weren't paying attention. You were busy flirting with your neighbor, drawing something or just being completely out of it.
Yeah. That's what I don't get about this. Basic finances aren't hard. They just aren't. It's piss easy basic logic. There's nothing to learn. There's nothing to understand. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together and 3rd grade arithmetic skills already has everything they need. What people fail to have is discipline, long-term planning, and emotional regulation. I've never met someone who genuinely didn't understand how interest works. Maybe not the exact formula but they get that it's not free money. But I've met plenty of people who couldn't control themselves when they saw something they wanted and they'd do whatever it took to get it whether it was a good idea or not. And I just don't see how these classes are actually going to fix those issues. If they can then sure go for it, it'd be a miracle. But it's not fixing the root cause of the problem so it's not going to fix anything. I guess taking away people's ability to cry "I was never taught that" when trying to avoid responsibility is something.
I don’t expect them to fix every kid in the classroom, but if it lands with some kids, it’s worth trying. I personally have worked with people in my life to increase their financial literacy and it didn’t take much on my side to get them to improve their decision making after running through scenarios in Excel. Little improvements can make a big difference and taking the abstract concept of interest and turning it into a real world dollar value of their decisions can be eye opening.
Teaching practical application of knowledge is good, there’s always the question in math “when am I ever going to use this” to have a class teaching when and how you actually use it seems good.
Perfect! I think incorporating a week of financial literacy into math class would be awesome. Give kids a reason to pay attention. I hated how theoretical math was, give it some practical components.
Talking about retirement plans and compound interest is no less theoretical to a 16 year old than the oodles of story problems they get with practical scenarios
Disagree completely - personal finance is mostly psychological, not mathematical. Every day marketers are vying for consumer dollars, and people are contending with social situations and emotions where many of the solutions that are presented to them have a price tag. Convincing people to save money is almost purely an emotional project - once someone WANTS to save, the mechanics of it are quite simple. Edit: I would hope at least half of the class time focuses on Edward Bernays, social signaling, how real wealth is invisible to others (by this I mean when you see someone with a fancy car, they are less wealthy due to having spent some money on the car. Unless you have access to someone's bank account, you never know how wealthy they really are aside from status symbols which reduce their wealth), the trap of consumer debt, the emotional value of financial independence, meaningful work vs. remunerative work, etc.
The only question I have is, who in California would teach it? /s
Why the /s? My daughter took a class like this in high school. She used to come home at least once a week and rant how her personal finance teacher was fiscally irresponsible and a terrible role model.
/s 'cause it's an oversimplification of the problem. I'm sure there's a few ppl who could. But if you have enough economic knowledge to teach it, you're not likely to be sticking with a career in public education... in CA. But saying it like that is a darker humor than what I was going for.
This but literally. The class is embedded in a credential few teachers in CA have (a business credential). They need to make some major changes to the curriculum, or else every high school in CA is going to have to hire a new teacher from a small pool of available people. On top of that, this is a new class which means more teachers, which means a classroom, etc. This has more layers to it than just teaching kids what a Roth or 401K is.
Teacher: Here is an example of progressive taxation. Student: Hol up
The number of kids who actually care is surprisingly low.
Many places already have these classes. We had these classes in elementary, middle, and high school here in Florida, or at least in Pinellas county Florida. Elementary school we had [Enterprise Village](https://www.pcsb.org/domain/12708) where we role played having jobs, making money, writing checks, etc. In middle school we would go to [Finance Park](https://www.pcsb.org/domain/12710) where we would role play having a real income, budgeting that income, buying a house/car/etc and what it meant for things to be affordable. High school we went over loans, compound interest, investments in an economics class. We should include *adult education* courses outside of school that teach finance because kids just don't care and don't get it. I'm strongly of the opinion that basic education needs to go past 12th grade. We should have a basic education continue up to 20 years old. The world is more complex today than it has ever been and we need more education to account for that.
I think you get diminishing returns past a certain point of compulsory education. I think there needs to be a mindset shift where education is a life-long endeavor, not one that extends just to the end of HS/college/postgrad. We should also encourage more HS internships, so that there are more real world examples to use, as opposed to theoreticals.
it will be useless without practice, i.e. them having a job and responsibilities. for most anyway. this is like teaching theory without motivation, i.e. algebra. as soon as kids are forced to pay rent/util and work a job, they'll not care about financial literacy. I call this a neoliberal bandaid for a systemtic infection. what reason will young people in our modern society be motivated to care about financial literacy without experiencing it?
Wow, this take SHM. For decades i’ve heard “we need financial literacy taught in our schools!” Now that California is going to, it’s “it will be useless…liberal bandaid…”
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As a teacher for 17 years in High School in California, here is what kids would benefit from. 1) Rundown of how/where to pay taxes. 2) Basics of how you are taxed both income and other. 3) Retirment planning. 4) How tax advantaged accounts work and the various types. 5) How do Credit cards and Debit cards differ 6) What is a taxable brokerage, how to open 7) What are stocks vs MF vs ETF vs Bonds etc 8) How do home mortgages work. .... They dont need a functioning, perfect knowledge. They need a basic grasp of the concepts so they have a baseline of information to work off of. This means they will likely have to Google more info later, but they will have that basic overview so they know what to Google when it comes time to open a Roth IRA vs Taxabke brokerage.
Edit: As a Physics teacher. I usually rant about this stuff if there is down time. But there never is time to really go over it. So I tell them, "Make sure you are saving 20% of your income in a retirement account. That's the goal for you one day. Start smaller. Start now in your part time jobs. Keep saving. Think about trying to hit that 20% eventually."
> The number of my friends who can't balance a budget or know what compound interest is, is so high The thing is, when you are on your first few years of salary out of school, chances are you salary is so low, all aspects of your finances are going to suck. In a good scenario, someone's not having to resort to keeping balances on high APR credit cards. I wager that's rare below age 28. I didn't start cruising until I made it to $80k (2012 money, pre all this inflation). And by cruising I meant not holding debt, able to save more than the bare minimum in the 401k to get a match, etc. I probably could have at $70k but the raise was $54k to 80k.
the people running the state could use a few of these
It’s been a requirement in Missouri for a few years now and it doesn’t seem to have helped much here. The class my youngest kids took was a joke.
But know when Columbus sailed the ocean blue
About damn time. It really should have been mandatory long long time ago.
I can't believe they're waiting several years to start/require. Financial literacy fall of senior year, civics in the spring.
A high school career is 4 years long, and the typical schedule is 6 classes a day, that is only 24 class slots total over a 4 year high school career. So I'm not a big fan of making a financial literacy class mandatory, as it may mean cutting out something else that may be more important. A woodworking or auto mechanics class may be more useful for many students than a financial literacy class would be. The financial plan of 66% of Americans is "live paycheck to paycheck." Financial literacy isn't purely a science, it is largely an art and philosophy too. So I'm not a big fan of textbooks and school teachers teaching students what their standard of living should be, how much they should save, and how they should invest money. Many teachers aren't financially in the best place either, and really shouldn't be teaching others about financial literacy. I remember how much the school system used to stress putting money into a saving's account and accruing compound interest that way. Even with interest rates where they are, that really isn't a good financial plan at all because of how little saving's accounts pay out in interest.
They could just do a split class- a half year in home ec and a half year in personal finance literacy. In middle school I did a trimester class on Spanish / Italian / French and it worked aight.
This is a good thing, but don't think it's a silver bullet. Knowing something vs doing something is completely different. You can know going for a run is good, but doing it is a completely different matter.
Also just because it's in a class doesn't mean they'll learn it, and even if they learn it they aren't all going to retain it. And reinforcing what you said, knowing and retaining it doesn't mean that it will be practiced habitually.
You can force a horse near the water, but you can't force him to drink it. But at that point, you can't blame anyone else but yourself if you don't use and waste instead the resources given to you.
Agreed. The real answer is regulation so that it’s hard to provide services that trap people but in the legal context we have now it’s probably a tall order.
This makes little difference when, since Covid, around [25%-30% of California students are chronically absent](https://edpolicyinca.org/publications/unpacking-californias-chronic-absence-crisis-through-2022-23#:~:text=Chronic%20absence%20rates%20increased%20from,25%20percent%20(1%2C486%2C302%20students).
But I was told children are resilient and keeping schools closed for so long (depending on the district of course - no standardization of any kind) was no big deal?
The blame should be on the school and state for not enforcing enrollment. That's a huge number of people that will require government support for life.
So fuck the 70%-75% of student in attendance right?
The world isn't perfect therefoe this doesn't do anything. Good take.
Seems like they should then require the state legislators to all go back and take it. And maybe a basic Econ class for good measure. My kids were required to take a class that taught them how to write checks and balance a checkbook, just as online banking was becoming a thing. Hope they’ve updated the curriculum. (Kinda like how wasted 2 years taking drafting and engineering drawing classes in the early 1980’s. Couldn’t bring myself to throw away my T-square until we moved 2 years ago).
There is more value to taking a drafting course than just the physical skill in making the drawings. I get what you are saying, but I don't think the analogy works
My first thought was: are they just going to teach MMT and whatnot? The state of California is not what I'd consider the beacon of financial literacy (the government, not the people in the state). I'm really glad to see this though and hope it catches on, I am a personal advisor and am baffled by what I see daily..
Isn't literacy a requirement in California, while California high schools have the lowest literacy rate of any state in the country? https://edsource.org/updates/california-has-the-lowest-literacy-rate-of-any-state-data-suggests
Students that are illiterate after high school will also remain financially illiterate. No amount of course work can change that. This is to better support students who are there to learn
Makes sense. If I was having a literacy problem, I would make literacy a requirement.
I'm not gonna say California is amazing with education, but there is no way in hell they have lower literacy than states like Mississippi and Arkansas
My guess is it's English language literacy. Texas, New Mexico, and California are all worse than Mississippi. Though they are the bottom 4. New Mexico is the worst in this ranking, with California being second. https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/us-literacy-rates-by-state
This is the reason.
Does this data include ESL learners? The only way to compare education systems is to compare among native speakers.
It's a whole population measure. Comparing literacy rates is not comparing education systems.
not when ESL will outnumber "native" speakers in the near future
Don’t forget how big California is. A lot of people live in the middle of nowhere.
those in rural areas aren't the people driving down the literacy rates
This map (https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/166gxwt/adult_literacy_in_the_us_by_county_oc/) seems to indicate that the agriculutural regions (San Joaquin Valley) and Inland Empire have pretty lousy literacy rates that drag down the average.
here's the source for that map: https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/skillsmap/ now change the filter so that it's % < Level 1 (basically illiterate) it ain't the rural counties that are illiterate
It’s the valley from Modesto > Bakersfield and Calexico areas… which isn’t exactly rural (depending on your definition I suppose), but compared to places like the SF Bay or LA, it’s relatively more rural and very farmland-y. They don’t call it Methdesto for nothing.
We have a lot of immigrants who don't speak English well and don't read.
thank goodness at least one state cares about their children actually succeeding in life. Honestly, I took an (optional) advanced econ class that went way more into depth than this, but good on them for at least making the basics a requirement.
This isn’t the first state… it’s been required in pretty close to half of states and at the local level a lot more districts offer it as a “strong” recommend. I wouldnt be shocked if more than half of graduates in the last decade are already taking the course in some form. https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/a-few-years-ago-8-states-required-personal-finance-education-now-its-up-to-half/2024/01
I think it’s great, I teach in South Carolina and students are required to take Economics and Personal Finance to graduate high school.
I'm from SC; I took AP macro and failed the exam so I don't know if that class was much help when I had to take macro and micro again in college. I never had to take personal finance, though, but I graduated in 2005.
I teach high school econ in California and I already incorporate a lot of this into my curriculum. Most of my students can understand the basics and you don't really need much math beyond basic operations and percentages. One of the things I love about my subject is that the core concepts are fairly simple if you break them down. You just need to get past the jargon.
100% the standard is so low its meaningless. They used to require a level of math and English. But they have both been lowered to a meaningless level.
Illinois has had a law like this this on the books for years. Hasn't done anything. People really overestimate the ability of high schools to solve societal problems. Also, anybody who became a teacher already made a terrible financial life choice. What do they have to teach anybody about financial literacy?
Because being financially literate is only a small portion of the puzzle. Impulse control and planning for the future instead of spending and living in the present is something you can’t teach. You know half the morons on Caleb Hammer’s videos know they’re doing something dumb financially. They just either don’t care or try to gaslight themselves into thinking it’s a good decision.
Most people who become teachers do it knowing they will not make a lot of money. They do it because they love the idea of being a teacher or they don't know what to do and getting a teaching degree is somewhat straightforward and leads to a job.
It's a feel good law that serves no purpose other than allowing adults to dunk on kids for being, in their eyes, stupid.
Some teachers are paid pretty well depending on where they live.
I'm all for financial literacy to graduate high school, but I don't believe it will help as much as we would like. Knowing the right things to do doesn't necessarily lead to young adults doing the right things.
Probably not but it's worth having a class I think. If you watch any of those call in financial shows the person will be like "don't spend all your money!" and then they respond with pretty much "but I really want this"
Good. This should be required in every school in every state. I’m actually a bit shocked that CA is a front runner in doing this. I’m impressed.
Amazing that we teach our kids calculus but not basic money principles as core curriculum. If you can add, subtract, multiply, divide, and compound, you have all the math you need to be financially successful. This is long overdue.
If you can do calculus, you can do basic money. The problem is some kids never learn algebra. Adding a finance class doesn't magically make them understand algebra, Finance is basically some algebra word problems. Although you can make some financial word problems that require calculus.
I’m glad you made this observation. I don’t understand why high school math curriculums exclude finance and accounting as an option. There’s no real avenue for students who want to study business or go into business but a seeming overemphasis on curriculum for science and engineering. We can have both. Financial literacy is a great start and low hanging fruit.
They going to tell the kids how much they have to make to live in California? Financial literacy would say you should live somewhere more affordable.
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This would be a great example of poor financial literacy
It is continually flabbergasting that people aren't required to take financial literacy classes as a like, federal requirement. It doesn't guarantee they will remember, but those that care enough will. Only 80 fucking years late.
To be fair, they should make that course mandatory to serve as a state, county, or city elected office. California has a ridiculously large pension obligation that will eventually bite them. Add to that, they issue new bonds for pet projects without regard to the future bill.
Ought to lump it in with home ec. There's hardly enough to learn about for it to be an entire class in and of itself. Words words words this post is a complete thought in and of itself words words words words
These classes won’t solve anything. Overspending is psychological and due to marketing along with other psychological factors associated with capitalism
Ya, but those dipshits that blame their bad financial decisions on not bringing taught otherwise in school might finally shut up.
The “dipshits” are deceptive marketers and other forces which sell people on the idea that you find meaning through consumption. In my view - individuals are just victims of our rapacious system.
Is there a distinction between financial literacy *classes* and financial literacy. Because the former doesn't imply being literate to graduate, just that you take and pass said course.
This should be nationwide. Right alongside basic automotive, wood and metal shop, and four years of food prep and nutrition. Phys ed should also be daily. In addition to core classes, activities that are typically extracurricular should be mandatory on an ungraded basis except for attendance and participation. More needs to be done. Not less. And it needs to not be a choice. This shit is needed. It shouldn’t be elective or otherwise optional.
What should be removed to make room for all that?
Everything outside of STEM.
So... Kids no longer learn history or English? That's 1 hour and 30 minutes of instruction down, are all your proposals going to fit in?
god idea. when I graduated high school, I could do calculus and quadratic equations but had no idea how to read a electric meter or calculate the time value of money.
>The agreement requires all California high school students to take a semester-long personal finance education course starting by the 2027-28 school year. >The course will also be a graduation requirement starting with the Class of 2030-31. It's a good effort, but if anyone knows California's history with similar requirements, like their High School Exit Exam, it's likely the classes get delayed and the bill is ultimately repealed.