You asked if the Connecticut State Department of Education (SDE) offers personal finance curriculum guidance to the local districts. You also wanted to know if other states have personal finance curricula in place and if there is any federal interest on this issue.

SUMMARY

In Connecticut, as in many other states, personal finance is taught as part of other elective courses. The SDE provides draft frameworks and curriculum templates for these courses. However, the SDE is making an effort to encourage educators to integrate personal finance into required subject areas. There has been a nationwide effort to increase students’ exposure to personal finance principles and federal legislation such as No Child Left Behind authorizes spending on programs to address the issue.

STATE PERSONAL FINANCE EDUCATION CURRICULUM REQUIREMENTS

Connecticut

Connecticut law states that “the state Board of Education shall assist and encourage local and regional boards of education to include personal financial management as part of the program of instruction required to be offered to students. ” C. G. S. §10-16b(d)(5). According to the SDE Bureau of Curriculum and Instruction, personal finance is usually taught as part of the business or family consumer science curricula. The SDE does provide frameworks and curriculum templates (sometimes in draft form) for these courses. For instance, the business and technology education draft framework that appears on the SDE web page, http: //www. state. ct. us/sde, includes as one of its program goals that each student will understand and apply economic and personal finance concepts as a result of education in Grades 5-12. The related curriculum template describes specific competencies for the subject area. According to 2003 survey data posted on the web page, 60 Connecticut high schools currently offer a personal finance course for credit. However, according to the SDE, these courses are usually elective in nature and only two schools in Connecticut require such courses for graduation.

A representative from the Bureau of Curriculum and Instruction says that the SDE has been making efforts in recent years to increase awareness about personal finance education and encourage educators to integrate personal finance into core subjects. She noted past and future professional development seminars and conferences on the issue. As described in the attached flyer, workshops planned for a March 2004 SDE sponsored symposium that will be coordinated by the Capital Region Education Council include “CAPTuring Business Personal Finance” and “Resources for Teaching Personal Finance. ”

Additionally, the bureau representative says that they are encouraging financial education through their work with the Office of the State Treasurer and the Jumpstart Coalition, a group of national organizations that works to improve students’ knowledge about personal finance that has received federal grants.

Other States

Several organizations committed to financial education conducted or supported surveys on personal finance education curricula.

The most recent comprehensive study appears to be the National Conference on Economic Education’s “Survey of the States – Economic and Personal Finance Education in Our Nation’s Schools,” published in 2003. This state by state survey, the organization’s third such biennial report card, was conducted in the fall of 2002 and is available online at http: //www. ncee. net/about/survey2002/NCEESurvey2002webB. pdf.

According to the survey, 31 states were found to have personal finance standards or guidelines, many within the standards for other courses such as economics. Of the states with standards, 17 required them to be implemented, and only four states (Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, and New York) required enrollment in a course that covered personal finance before high school graduation. At the time of the survey, eight states tested personal finance knowledge in some form, with tests pending in two other states. As in Connecticut, it is usually left up to local boards to determine how standards are implemented and many schools implement personal finance education on an independent basis, through relationships with non-profits and local businesses.

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S EFFORTS TO INCREASE FINANCIAL LITERACY

Legislators and representatives from the U. S. Department of Education, the Department of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve Bank have all affirmed the need to increase the level of financial literacy and integrate personal finance into the core curriculum in the nation’s schools. Personal finance education has been the subject of Capitol Hill hearings and committee meetings, as well as conferences sponsored by various federal offices.

In 2002, the departments of Treasury and Education released a report entitled “Integrating Financial Education into School Curricula. ” This report identifies options such as including financial education in standards set by state school boards; incorporating financial concepts into test questions; and urging textbook publishers to include more financial education content.

The efforts of some legislators and nonprofit organizations resulted in the inclusion of a financial education component in the “No Child Left Behind Act of 2001” (NCLB). Title V, Part A of NCLB authorizes 27 new uses for Local Innovative Education Programs, including funds to support activities that promote consumer, economic, and personal finance education. Under the act this funding is distributed to state educational agencies according to a formula. Each state educational agency may keep up to 15% of the funding and distributes the remaining 85% to local education agencies based on a funding formula. The local education agencies decide how to use the funds. The NCLB also contains the Excellence in Economic Education program that authorizes the Secretary of Education to award a grant to a nonprofit entity to foster financial literacy among students in grades k-12.

Legislation has also been introduced in the higher education arena in the form of the “College Literacy in Finance and Economics” (College LIFE) Act. S. 1800, 108^th Cong (2004).

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