Teaching Financial Literacy

The Museum teamed up with the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy, and 20 other partners from the public and private sectors to launch the first-ever, math-based financial literacy curriculum for kids that is national in scope. The several year long effort to develop the "Money Math: Lessons for Life" curriculum was coordinated by the Center for Economic Education at the University of Missouri St. Louis drawing on more than a dozen writers, pilot teachers, and reviewers in response to the country's low financial literacy rates among teens. The supplemental middle school math curriculum teaches the importance of sound personal finance to students in grades 7 through 9 and works as a skills building block to equip youth for a future when they will be required to handle even more complex concepts.

The launch of "Money Math" at the Nasdaq market opening on May 7. Participants included Chi McBride, star of the Fox TV show "Boston Public," officials from the U.S. Treasury Department, WOR's Ken and Daria Dolan, and Museum Chair John E. Herzog.

Money Math was launched on May 7 from the market open ceremony at the Nasdaq MarketSite in Times Square and will be made available to 110,000 math teachers in 16,000 school districts for incorporation into fall 2001 curricula. Lesson topics include income, saving, taxes, and budgeting. The launch of this important middle-school financial education program comes on the heels of Alan Greenspan’s recent call-to-action urging the teaching of basic financial management skills to kids beginning at a young age.

The concept of creating a curriculum supplement specifically for middle-school math classes emerged after consecutive results of the Jump$tart Coalition’s nationwide survey on financial knowledge of 12th graders, revealed that when it comes to personal finance topics such as paying taxes, using a credit card, or saving toward retirement, today’s high school seniors receive failing marks. On average, participants in the 2000 study answered only 51.9% of the questions correctly. While teens may not know how to manage their money, they do know a thing or two about spending it. In 2000, teens spent $155 billion, which is equal to Mexico’s yearly exports or the annual sales of the entire U.S. aerospace industry. In 1999, 460,000 people age 35 or under filed for bankruptcy.

All four "Money Math" lessons are available online at www.savingsbonds.gov and http://coach.dosomething.org. Both the web-based lessons and print