Executive Summary
House Bill 1973 and Executive Order 02-08 issued by Governor Bob Holden call for a set of recommendations to be made to the Missouri General Assembly and to the Governor’s office concerning economic and personal finance education in Missouri schools. The Missouri Council on Economic Education (MCEE), serving as an agent for the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), has taken responsibility for the preparation of these recommendations with the assistance of the office of the Missouri State Treasurer and the Missouri Bankers Association.
The Final Report contains five recommendations called for by House Bill 1973 and the Governor’s Executive Order. These recommendations came following development of grade-specific classroom learning objectives by staff of the University of Missouri-St. Louis Center for Entrepreneurship and Economic Education. These staff members have significant experience in the development of national standards in both economic education and personal finance education for students in kindergarten through high school, along with extensive curricular writing experience.
The impetus for House Bill 1973 and the Governor’s Executive Order is the belief that young people and adults need additional understandings and skills to cope with the complexities of personal and corporate economic and financial decision making now and in the future. Further, the belief is that this can only be accomplished by improvements in state education requirements relating to curricular structures, testing, funding, and teacher certification.
The Study is designed to demonstrate that the teaching of economic and personal financial understandings and skills can be integrated into existing curricular activities including reading, writing, mathematics, social studies, business, agriculture, and family and consumer sciences. In addition it proposes the principles to be taught at each grade level and establishes a sequential order of learning consistent with existing Missouri structures.