Section I - Background:
On January 8, 2002, a meeting was called by the Missouri Bankers Association inviting groups involved in personal financial education in Missouri schools. About fifteen organizations attended including two members of the Missouri General Assembly. As a result of sharing information about activities, materials, and concerns, the gathering formed the Missouri Coalition for Economic and Financial Literacy and a legislative subcommittee. This subcommittee was charged with responding to an invitation to develop a legislative approach to address a significant concern about the need for additional economic and financial education in Missouri schools.
House Bill 1973 resulted and was passed by the Missouri House 130 – 11 and by the Senate 30 – 0. During the legislative process, it appeared that procedural complexities might prevent the bill from receiving Senate consideration. Governor Bob Holden responded with an Executive Order using substantive language parallel to House Bill 1973. Appendix A to this report contains House Bill 1973 and Appendix B contains the Governor’s Executive Order.
Because of funding pressures on the state budget, no financial support was available from state government to support The Study. Both documents called on private and federal sources to provide the needed funding. The Missouri Council on Economic Education (MCEE), on behalf of the Missouri Coalition for Economic and Financial Literacy, accepted responsibility for developing a budget and raising funds for The Study. Appendix C contains the budget and the list of Supporting Organizations to date that have provided cash or pledges for $95,975 of the $100,000 budget. Many members of the Coalition for Economic and Financial Literacy responded generously to the request for funds and solicited their associates across Missouri for financial support.
The timing of the funding responses required the start of The Study to be delayed until October 1, 2002. The Center for Entrepreneurship and Economic Education at the University of Missouri-St. Louis became the principal contractor for the curricular work of The Study. Dr. Sarapage McCorkle and her associates at the Center have outstanding national credentials to conduct such work including being a part of developing both the national standards for economic education and the national standards for personal finance education. Information on each associate and the director of the overall project, Stan Mengel (President & CEO of the MCEE), are listed in Appendix D.
The Curricular Process:
Missouri, through the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) has stated its educational goals in the form of the Missouri Show-Me Standards containing sets of knowledge objectives and process skills for all students. The subject of “economics” has been a part of the social studies standards from the beginning. As a result, “economics” is included sufficiently on the Missouri Assessment Program (MAP tests) that a separate score on economics can be reported as a part of the overall social studies test administered at the 4th, 8th, and 11th grade levels to all Missouri students.
“Personal Finance” objectives are not included at any point in the Missouri Show-Me Standards. Consequently, there are no reportable scores measuring knowledge or skills of this subject. Because of the close relationship between economics and personal finance principles, this appeared to be the best place to introduce personal finance into the Missouri curriculum.
Economic understanding is defined as knowledge of American and global economies including generally the operation of markets, productivity, inflation, money, international trade, economic growth, taxes, and the role of labor, entrepreneurship, and government. Personal finance is generally defined as knowledge and skills enabling a person to make effective personal decisions relating to handling of money (budgeting, spending, saving, investing), consumer rights and responsibilities, use of credit (housing, automobile, education, cards) and knowledge of financial institutions.
In order to introduce personal finance topics into Missouri education in a useful manner, it is first necessary to set benchmarks for knowledge and/or skills at each grade level from kindergarten through high school (K-12). While many persons are in favor of young people and adults knowing “more” about personal finance in general, it is necessary to make curricular decisions about exactly what concept or skill is appropriate to learn at each grade level. Those recommendations are one of the main tasks of The Study.
Economic benchmarks have already been set and appear at the 4th, 8th, and 11th grade levels in DESE publications. These currently form the basis for construction of the social studies MAP tests covering economics. However, since the economics benchmarks were written, new national standards in economics have been created. It is appropriate to consider updating the current economic benchmarks in light of the new national standards.
An additional critical consideration here is the fact that many personal finance benchmarks are literally the same as economic benchmarks. The close relationship between the two areas is nowhere better shown then this simple fact. When one is considering an expansion of the learning done by Missouri students, it is a simple matter of efficiency to plan to take advantage of learning that accomplishes two objectives simultaneously. Consequently, it is appropriate to consider the full range of both fields looking for every avenue where learning one fact or skill can accomplish two objectives at the same time.
Consequently, the task of the St. Louis Center conducting the curricular portions of The Study was to state the economic and personal finance benchmarks at every grade level. Because the new federal “No Child Left Behind” legislation mandated stating learning objectives at each grade level, DESE was already in the process of transforming their benchmarks for the social studies and other curricular areas into grade-by-grade benchmarks also known as grade-level objectives.
In Section III., Part C, (page 22) there is a list of the economic and personal finance benchmarks proposed by The Study. At every grade level (K, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9-12) a statement is given along with a code indicating if that proposed benchmark is economics or is personal finance or is both simultaneously.
It should be noted at this point that it is not the intent of The Study to propose any legislatively mandated benchmarks. It has never been the role of the Missouri General Assembly to state specific benchmarks in any field. Rather, the role of the General Assembly has been to occasionally state a field or an area where it is expected that DESE or local school districts will develop appropriate curricular responses. The requirement to study Missouri history and the US Constitution are examples of this kind of concern.
These proposed benchmarks are intended to create some focus for discussion of a topic that has no common vocabulary or conceptual base among the educational decision makers in the state. These proposed benchmarks are designed to facilitate a dialogue among members of the Missouri State School Board, DESE, local Missouri educators in schools and universities, legislators, and citizens to determine if in fact this is something that deserves more attention in the curriculum, teacher certification, testing, and funding priorities for the state.
Concern about Available Time in Classrooms:
There is one overriding concern that is stated when educators have considered the inclusion of greater expectations of student achievement in economics and personal finance. Teachers are concerned that there is not enough time in a school day to meet yet another expectation. There is only one answer to this concern. This answer has been successfully demonstrated over and over again in more than thirty years of MCEE experience in bringing economic education to Missouri teachers. The problem is that too few teachers and administrators are aware of it.
The answer is that appropriate teacher training and materials allows successful integration of learning economics and personal finance concepts and skills into reading, writing, math, social studies, business, agriculture, and family and consumer sciences.
In addition, successful use of this integration brings new levels of student motivation to the learning process. This is not an inconsequential side benefit. It is a fundamental force directly related to the subject matter of economics and personal finance that makes the learning process more efficient for both the teacher and the student. One of the greatest tasks faced by teachers is to motivate students to learn. Missouri teachers are committed to bringing new insights and skills to their students and one of their greatest frustrations is the difficulty of “getting the student’s attention” and motivating the student to “want to learn.” By introducing reading, writing, and mathematics projects related to money, economic forces, and personal decision making the teacher can significantly increase the desire of students to learn. Learning can become more relevant to each student’s life and the decision making they encounter. The ability of the learning process to achieve even a modest increase in efficiency due to this source more than makes up for the additional training appropriate for most teachers.
Demonstration to Educators:
The purpose of The Study is not just to create a set of recommendations to improve the economic and financial literacy of Missouri students. It is also to provide a common understanding of the content of economic and personal finance education and to demonstrate to Missouri educators unfamiliar with both that the content is easy to learn and to teach. For this reason, a significant part of the work of The Study is to provide classroom examples and references to readily available materials that will support any teacher’s effort in economic and personal finance education.
Staff members of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Economic Education are highly experienced and knowledgeable about curriculum writing and resources available to support economic and personal finance education. The listing of economic and personal finance benchmarks in Section III may appear daunting to the uninitiated teacher. To assist understanding of the ease with which these concepts can be taught, The Study prepared an extensive listing of classroom examples for every benchmark. These twenty-five pages appear in Appendix F.
To provide even more documentation of the ease of accessing materials and examples of how to integrate economics and personal finance education into core curricular areas, The Study provides an Annotated Bibliography that is thirty-six pages in length. This Annotated Bibliography appears in Appendix G.
Finally, to assist Missouri educators unfamiliar with economic and personal finance education classroom models, curricula, and terminology, a Glossary of Terms is provided to provide clear definitions of important topics. This Glossary is eight pages in length and is printed in Appendix H.
Education Roundtable Review Process:
An important part of the process of completing The Study has been to obtain comments from educators including classroom teachers at all grade levels, building principals at the elementary, middle and high school levels, school superintendents and school board members. In addition comments on the work of The Study are being sought from members of the Missouri Parent Teachers Association (PTA) and the general public.
The intent of this effort is two-fold. Many of these persons are unfamiliar with economic and personal finance education and it is appropriate to provide them with orientation to the field and practical ideas about how these principles can be taught in classrooms at all grade levels. The second element is a genuine desire and need on the part of the authors of The Study for “outside evaluation” of the proposals they are making. Are the ideas being suggested as practical as is believed? Are some important elements being overlooked? Are there unnecessary redundancies in The Study? Are some important principles being overlooked?
The director of The Study, Stan Mengel, has met with the heads of all members of Missouri Education Roundtable seeking feedback and evaluation assistance. This Roundtable consists of the heads of every important statewide association of professional educators in the state. Participating organizations include the Missouri School Boards Association, the Missouri Association of Elementary School Principals, the Missouri Association of Secondary School Administrators, the Missouri Association of School Administrators, the Missouri Parent Teacher Association, the Missouri American Federation of Teachers, the Missouri National Education Association, and the Missouri State Teachers Association. In every case, the associations agreed to provide members to review elements of The Study as it was completed. Approximately 170 persons associated with these organizations as well as additional contacts made by the MCEE received copies of materials prepared for The Study via email distribution. All were to provide their comments to a website designed for that purpose.
Issues of Teacher Certification:
One of the recommendations called for by House Bill 1973 and the Governor’s Executive Order has to do with teacher certification. In particular, it is appropriate to consider how increased expectations of Missouri teachers in the area of economic and personal finance education may find reflections in the teacher certification requirements of the state. In order to make recommendations as meaningful as possible each teacher certification institution in the state has been contacted and surveyed. Dr. Tom Vontz, a member of the education faculty at Rockhurst University (Kansas City) has designed and conducted this survey. It is intended to generate information on how current teacher certification requirements in the area of economics are being met and to identify persons on each campus to involve in a dialogue regarding potential changes in certification requirements.
Twenty-nine surveys were completed and telephone contacts were initiated with the remaining institutions. It is clear from preliminary results that a variety of practices are common in the state and that additional analysis and direct interviews will be necessary. The final report from Dr. Vontz is in Appendix E. In addition one “focus group” was assembled via a telephone conference call with representatives of the teacher certification institutions.
Issues of Funding:
One of the recommendations expected from The Study is to provide estimates of the costs of implementing new initiatives for curricular changes in school districts including teacher training and materials, changes in state testing protocols, and in teacher certification processes at institutions of higher education in Missouri. Because of the current state funding crisis, it is understood that it is unlikely that new funds will be available in the near-term for implementation of these recommendations. Consequently, the recommendations were prepared on an assumption of future growing revenues in the state that could provide new funding in the future. Because there are substantial sums spent currently on education in the state, it is also anticipated that many of the curricular recommendations to be made could be funded out of current revenue sources.
The project director of The Study has obtained the services of Dr. John Jones of Jefferson City, a recognized expert in Missouri school finance. Jones has experience with DESE and with the Missouri State Teachers Association where he provides assistance with school finance issues. A synopsis of Jones recommendations appear in Appendix L. This provides a list of alternative funding mechanisms including ideas of how to automatically “trigger” the new funding in the future.
Issues of Testing:
The state of Missouri has made major commitments to testing students using the Missouri Assessment Program (MAP). While state funding to support the testing has been problematical, the school districts of the state have shown substantial support for the process and state funding of the testing is anticipated to be resumed at former levels in the near future. Testing plays a very significant role in the curricular decisions made at local levels regarding priorities and emphases. Because of this it is critical that the MAP tests reflect appropriate levels of economic and personal finance subjects and that the current allocation of questions on economics will need to be increased to reflect the additional topic of personal finance education. This appears to be a more practical approach than to require an additional test that only deals with personal finance questions. Because of the technical nature of alterations in tests and the need for security as well as professional competence, this work must necessarily be handled only by DESE and not by outside groups. Discussions have been initiated to identify the issues that must be decided in order to accomplish the desired changes. It is clear that significant lead time in terms of two or more years will be needed to implement any changes once the nature of the changes has been determined.
A Mandatory High School Capstone Course:
This issue is one that raises very high concerns on the part of proponents of adding more economic and personal finance education in the schools. It is known that states such as California, New York, and Texas have required similar courses with successful experiences. Dr. William Walstad, director of the National Center for Research in Economic Education at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has prepared a report (see the full report in Appendix K) on these experiences. At the same time, the length of the school day, the existence of numerous other mandatory graduation requirements, and the lack of teachers academically prepared to teach such a course raise significant obstacles to creation of such a requirement.
The language of House Bill 1973 and the Governor’s Executive order only request description of content for such a mandated high school class in economics and personal finance education. Missouri public high school teachers have drafted a syllabus for such a course with the assistance of the UMSL Center staff and this document appears in Appendix J.
Data on Current Experience in Missouri:
Data from DESE on the current statewide courses and enrollments across Missouri in classes related to economic and personal finance are listed in Appendix M. These numbers demonstrate clearly that while many students are already receiving instruction in economics and personal finance, this is being accomplished primary within the vocational education disciplines of business, agriculture, and Family and Consumer Sciences. It is not clear that this successful experience comes very close to meeting the recommended benchmarks in this study. Additionally, it is very clear that most Missouri students receive little instruction in these areas. Course titles themselves provide relatively little information about the content of the courses.