Volume 11, Number 4, 2003
Teens lean to make sound financial decisions
From maxed-out credit cards to minimum-wage jobs, today's teenagers might be facing significant economic obstacles after high school unless they acquire some basic financial knowledge before entering the adult world, Barbara Emery says.
Emery, AS '69, BE '84M, is a retired high school teacher who now is a program coordinator in the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics' Center for Economic Education and Entrepreneurship (CEEE). She has developed a "financial literacy" course for high school juniors and seniors, which the center makes available to Delaware schools.
One high school piloted the semester-long course last school year, and additional teachers attended CEEE's professional development classes last summer to learn the course content and teaching strategies. This year, eight schools are offering the program as an elective.?
"The course is being taught in a variety of departments, including social studies, business, family and consumer sciences and even math," Emery says. "We want to be flexible and allow schools to select the department, because we realize schools are confined by a number of factors, such as money and staffing. We want teachers to participate because they're committed to this course."
Financial literacy instruction "isn't a requirement in the state of Delaware, but we're finding a lot of interest in offering the program," says Bonnie Meszaros, CEEE associate director. "We set a goal of expanding into five additional high schools this year, and we ended up with eight. We hope to add five more next year and also expand further into southern Delaware."
Jim O'Neill, CEEE director, says, "The ultimate goal is to continue growing in quantity and quality and eventually become statewide."
The program got its start when the Federal Reserve Bank in Philadelphia approached the University about developing a class on personal finance for high school students. At the same time, the Delaware Bankers Association, citing concerns about Americans' low rate of saving, expressed interest in the same type of project, as did Consumer Credit Counseling Services of Maryland and Delaware. They agreed to underwrite the costs.
Emery, who earned her master's degree in economic education, researched a variety of existing personal finance courses, but she says none of them offered the mix of content and activities she wanted. So, she put together a package of lesson plans, activities and course materials from several different sources. The curriculum focuses on five areas:
"When the teachers get this package from us, it's not written in stone," Emery says. "They can use their own professional expertise to adjust it to their strengths and to the students they have at any particular time."
She and the educators teaching the course meet four times a year to review the curriculum, discuss what seems to be working and not working in their classrooms and make adjustments. The teachers say they especially like having the ongoing support from the CEEE and networking opportunities with their colleagues, Emery says.
"Financial literacy is a critical life skill that directly affects how a family functions," says Sally Dodds, CHEP '72, a consumer science teacher at Christiana High School, who taught the course for the first time this school year. "These students are juniors and seniors, and they need to start thinking about these issues."
In a recent class session, Dodds read off a list of the jobs that are expected to have the greatest need for qualified workers in the near future. Her 25 students, grouped in teams, tried to figure out how much education was required for each position. While the type of job varied greatly, from paralegal to veterinarian to data equipment repairer, the students soon realized that each demanded some additional education or training after high school.
"In our next class, we're going to go online in the computer lab and start researching some of these jobs and their starting salaries," Dodds told the class. Eventually, she said, each student will choose a job for which he or she seems suited and determine its entry-level pay rate. As the semester continues, the students will make an assortment of financial decisions, from where they should rent an apartment to what kind of car they can afford, based on the job they have chosen.
"The activities the class does each day build on each other," Dodds says. "That's one of the things I like about this course."?
Other teachers also say they are convinced the program is valuable.
"I believe that financial literacy is essential information for graduating seniors to have before they begin in the real world," says Christine Schumacher, who is teaching the course in the social studies department at Middletown High School. "If I can help them avoid some basic mistakes that consumers are making due to lack of knowledge of the financial world, I will be happy."
The fundamental message the course tries to convey, Emery says, is that resources are always limited, so good financial decision-making is key. "With every choice you make, you give something else up," she says. "If some students become savers and responsible users of credit as a result of this course, that's a worthwhile accomplishment."
In addition to the curriculum, the program offers some extra activities, including an on-campus competition this spring sponsored by the Delaware Bankers Association, in which students taking the course will make presentations on a given topic.
The association also has underwritten two $1,000 scholarships and has funded a parent-involvement project that includes four seminars each year. The Federal Reserve Bank constructed a web site, "Finding the Keys to Your Financial Success," at [www.lerner.udel.edu/keys]. The site gives parents information about the course their children are taking and also information they can use in making their own financial decisions.
-Ann Manser, AS '73, CHEP '73