• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Wisconsin Requires Personal Financial Management Credit for High School

Posted on: Friday, 24 February 2006, 06:00 CST

By O'Brien, Rita

In the Appleton Area School District (AASD) in Appleton, Wisconsin, it is believed that how students manage their money today will affect all of their tomorrows. Indeed, how money is handled in a family has a deep impact on all of its members. The AASD's Personal Financial Management (PFM) class not only teaches the specifics of budgeting and handling money, but it also offers students a realistic view of how important it is for them to control their future with the decisions they make. PFM was developed to help students determine how to earn money and how to use it.

Beginning in 2005, PFM became a required onesemester course to be taken at the junior/senior level. Teachers are able to offer a challenging curriculum by staying current with the ever-changing trends in financial information. In this school district, teachers are required to be certified in family and consumer education, marketing, or business and they are required to complete nine graduate credits sponsored by the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions in order to be eligible to teach PFM.

Until the 2005-2006 school year, PFM had been a course titled "Living on Your Own," and the curriculum had focused primarily on the financial impact of family decision-making. The Family and Consumer Education Department recognized the need to address issues of financial literacy more deeply and thus redesigned the course with the help of state and community professionals, particularly the Fox Cities Financial Literacy Advisory Committee. The business contacts and support used in this program serve as career and technical education resources. Junior Achievement, the University of Wisconsin Extension, and financial institutions such as Community First Credit Union, Wells Fargo Bank, Principal Financial, and Thrivent Financial all partner with the school district to enhance opportunities for students to gain real-life experiences in dealing with financial matters.

This financial literacy program encourages students to develop an understanding of finances, risk, and capital management and educates them in the principles of financial resource management as it relates to the economy and their lives. Students learn how they will be able to achieve personal lifestyle and financial objectives. The class requires higher level thinking skills to solve various real- life financial problems, keeping students interested and involved in learning. Students become comfortable in thinking about money not simply as a means to an end but as a workable tool to be used to create opportunities for themselves, their families, and their communities.

Rita O'Brien, family and consumer education program leader at North High School in Appleton, Wisconsin, was instrumental in establishing a district-level graduation requirement for a course in financial literacy.

Copyright American Association of Family & Consumer Sciences Jan 2006

Source: Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences

More News in this Category