SOUND POLICY: Students Will Learn Financial Skills

Alot of the lessons learned from the past year's credit crisis are pretty basic: Don't spend more than you earn. Don't invest in risky opportuni ties. Don't inflate your balance sheet.

Maybe those responsible need to go back to high school.

Starting in the fall of 2010, Virginia's high schools will require for graduation a one-credit course in economics and personal finance. It's a bold move by the Virginia Board of Education (VBOE) to ensure the future fiscal responsibility of the commonwealth's students, and maybe, just maybe, it's what we need to get our children on a more prudent path.

You cannot open the newspaper, turn on the evening news, or listen to the radio without hearing about the state of the union's financial ruin. There has never been a better time to teach our students how to manage money and learn personal finance skills.

In the Dec. 10 article, "Mandatory Course Raises Concerns," some educators are reported as wary of implementing the financial literacy graduation requirement mandated by the VBOE and approved by Gov. Tim Kaine. Teachers cite worries over cost and teacher training -- both of which can easily be addressed.

Before approving the requirement, the VBOE undertook an economic analysis and concluded that the new requirement would have very small budget implications for school districts. An abundance of free economics and personal finance resources, curricula, and training guides are available to all school systems in the state (alleviating the need to purchase textbooks), and free teacher training is currently being offered through Virginia Department of Education conferences and special workshops this spring and summer by organizations such as the Virginia Council on Economic Education, among others.

More than 90 organizations across Virginia (members of the nonprofit Virginia Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy) are ready and willing to serve as a resource -- providing funding, training, volunteers, and other assistance -- to help school systems and teachers in implementing the graduation requirement.

The City of Salem, which was the first school district to implement this graduation requirement on the local level, did so at zero cost to the school system. And many other school districts followed suit to offer stand-alone courses before the statewide mandate.

In the article, educators also expressed concern about the cost of hiring new teachers. The mandate allows school systems much flexibility in implementation, and it was not written in such a manner that requires new teachers be hired. In fact, a course satisfying the requirement could be taught by teachers in a number of existing departments, including history and social science, mathematics, and career and technical education. School divisions have at least three years to implement the program, as ninth-graders in 2010 will have until they graduate in 2014 to take the course.

What better time to educate our students on money management than now? It's clear that an educational requirement is critical for our students to navigate their own financial futures.

In a 2008 national financial literacy survey of high school seniors by the Jump$tart Coalition on basic money management questions, Virginia's youth got a failing grade by answering only 48 percent of questions correctly.

But the research shows that parents and their children want personal finance taught in the classroom. A 2007 Visa survey found that 91 percent of parents surveyed supported teaching financial literacy in every high school in the country.

Virginia's leaders in education understand the critical need to teach our students economics and financial literacy lessons, and the requirement provides students with the education that their parents clearly want. This is also what our business community wants. The Virginia Society of CPAs, the Virginia Jump$tart Coalition, and numerous other organizations have advocated for this course for the past five years. Prior to the decision, the VBOE received more than 300 public comments in strong support of a required course in economics and personal finance.

Beginning next year, rest assured that Virginia students will learn money management skills when it matters most -- before they are faced with real-world responsibilities like financial aid and college tuition, credit card debt and consumer spending, and owning their first car or home.

While we understand the severe budget situation in Virginia and the cuts faced by school systems, delaying or eliminating students' access to financial education is not the solution. We owe it to our youth to ensure they'll leave high school with the tools to secure a sound financial future. If not now, then when?

Tina D. Lambert is vice president of member and public relations of the Virginia Society of CPAs, and serves on the Board of Directors of the Virginia Jump$tart Coalition. Contact her at tlambert@vscpa.com or (804) 612-9416.