This year’s freshman class is the first class required to meet the new Economics course requirement in order to graduate. Many people believe that if people learned more about economics and personal finance in high school, they would not have made some of the bad decisions that led to the recent financial crisis. That is certainly a debatable point, as the financial crisis resulted from many factors beyond the bad choices of people buying houses they couldn’t afford, including greed and herd behavior from bankers, incompetence from regulators and poorly conceived government policies. A high school econ course will do little to stop those kinds of things from happening.
It is also debatable because of the way the new course is designed. It is presently divided about 50/50 between standards related to classic economic theory (supply and demand, GDP) and standards related to personal finance issues. Studying economic theory will not help graduates make better decisions about taking out mortgages that are “too good to be true,” or overspending on their credit cards, or any of the other questionable personal finance practices that led us to the bad economy we currently face. In my opinion, it would be far better for most students to focus on things like budgeting, managing credit cards, basic consumer math, simple investment and savings concepts, and even learning and thinking about the ethics of financial decision making and how to live a responsible life financially. Does this knowledge require an entire year of high school course work? Hmm, that’s debatable too, I think.
As an IB Economics teacher, I obviously don’t want to discourage anyone from taking Economics. Economics students learn a new and sophisticated vocabulary, debate controversial current events and get a chance to look at the way the world works from a different vantage. Of course, I think it is fascinating. But it doesn’t teach students how to make financial decisions.
Beyond that, there is another issue with the existing econ/personal finance requirement. Many of our students have schedules dictated by college entrance requirements and desired electives such as extra science courses, music, art, theater, etc. Marshall students following the IB Diploma track have even more elective requirements on their plate. All these pressures and demands leave little time in the schedule for an extra econ course.
Nevertheless, a requirement we have, so we need to figure out the best way to meet it. It looks like there are going to be a number of ways to do that. First, students can take the Econ/Personal Finance course offered through the Business Department at most FCPS high schools. Second, there will be an online version of this class which might be taken as an eighth class or during the summer. Third, students can meet the requirement by taking IB or AP Economics. This option will be helpful to college-bound students seeking a rigorous schedule, as well as students who are interested in a course that delves deeply into current events and global political issues. However, this will also be an “awkward fit;” while IB and AP econ classes have a very easy time meeting the economics requirements, covering the personal finance topics will require a lot of extra dedication on the part of both students and teachers.
This brings up another issue. All these new economics classes will require economics teachers, and we have a shortage of those right now. While teachers certified in business, marketing, math, consumer education and social studies can teach the regular Economics/Personal Finance class, only social studies teachers are allowed to teach IB and AP Economics. This is a big problem, because some social studies teachers don’t feel prepared to address the math concepts of economics and/or they haven’t been trained to teach the personal finance topics. Math, business, marketing and other teachers should be allowed to teach IB and AP Economics.
One way to alleviate this shortage and also help kids with chock-full schedules would be to design a test that students could take to pass the requirement in lieu of having to take the class. There is a plethora of books and web sites that an enterprising high school student could use to gain enough knowledge to pass the requirements of this class, especially if their parents and families discuss these issues at home and pass on their financial values to their students, as they should. Also, students involved in competitions like LifeSmarts could pass such a test with ease.
In sum, a well-meaning idea has a way to go to work out all the kinks. I hope we can do this in a way that benefits students and helps them learn how to navigate the financial world they face after graduation