Personal Financial Literacy standards set

State Superintendent Elizabeth Burmaster unveiled Wisconsin’s Model Academic Standards for Personal Financial Literacy recently, praising the work of the task force that developed the standards.

“Personal financial literacy is vital for all students to be financially successful,” Burmaster said. “These standards will help young people understand how to be wise consumers, savers, and investors so that they and their families are economically secure.”

Appointed by Burmaster in March, 2005, with support from the Governor’s Council on Financial Literacy and Secretary Lorrie Keating Heinemann of the Department of Financial Institutions, the Personal Financial Literacy Task Force reviewed existing national standards, came to a consensus on seven content standards, and sought web-based input to clarify and refine standards for personal financial literacy. Those standards for what students should know, and be able to do, are benchmarked at fourth, eighth, and twelfth grades. They cover relating income and education; money management; credit and debt management; planning, saving, and investing; becoming a critical consumer; community and financial responsibility; and risk management.

An estimated 80 percent of Wisconsin students work while they are in high school, and nearly one third have personal checking accounts and credit cards in their own names. Today’s students have easy means to spend money and incur debt. However, they do not always have access to the knowledge they need to build a secure financial future, including knowing about the economic benefits of further education, making a wise home purchase, or starting a business. The new personal financial literacy standards can help prepare them with that knowledge.

In the last decade, Wisconsin experienced tremendous growth in nontraditional credit products such as those offered by payday lenders, rent-to-own businesses, and auto title companies. This high-cost credit, with annualized interest rates of 300 percent to 1,000 percent, can have a huge social and economic impact on families, communities, and our state’s economy. Over the past 15 years, the state has seen personal bankruptcy filings increase by more than 100 percent.

An electronic copy of the standards is available on the Department of Public Instruction Content and Learning Team website at http://www.dpi.wi.gov/cal/index.html. Printed copies of “Wisconsin’s Model Academic Standards for Personal Financial Literacy” will be available for purchase from the Department of Public Instruction Publication Sales, (800) 243-8782, or visit the DPI Publications Sales page.

Last updated on 5/22/2006