A bipartisan group of Florida lawmakers is back again with a proposal that has some influential supporters. They want every student who graduates high school to complete a course in financial literacy.
A similar measure failed to pass last legislative session. To fare better this year it needs to overcome a key objection: Students may have a hard time finding room in their schedules for another graduation requirement.
Right now, Florida is in the process of implementing a two-year-old digital learning law that might offer some novel ways to overcome that obstacle, like a new course access system.
Supporters of a mandatory “money course” have marshaled research showing students would benefit from learning how to manage their finances, as well as testimonials from teachers who say it’s difficult to fit personal-finance units into semester-long economics courses, as state law currently requires.
Newspapers around the state have endorsed the standalone course, as have business leaders and prominent elected officials like Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater.
All of them make good points. This week, however, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel shed some light on the other side of the story:
Kathi Gundlach, president of the Palm Beach County Classroom Teachers association, said financial literacy classes should not be required.
“More and more classes are being mandated, and they’re usually unfunded,” she said. “We don’t have any money for books or to do it. Financial literacy is already included in the course work.”
The number of mandated courses is a valid concern. Students generally need 24 credits to finish high school, and for many of them, the state’s core course requirements leave room for only eight electives. Each of those slots is precious if they want to take band or drama, learn computer programming, pursue the arts, learn a foreign language, pick up college credits through Advanced Placement, or earn industry certifications.
Ambitious students already find ways to take classes beyond the traditional six credits a year for four years of high school — online, over the summer, while they’re in middle school. They’re about to have more options at their disposal.
Right now, state education officials are vetting the first round of proposals to offer classes through the state’s new course access system. Decisions on the first round of approved courses are expected by the middle of the next month.
The course access, or course choice, program offers a new way to reach students. If the necessary course codes exist, a top financial literacy instructor with the right credentials could develop a top-notch course on money management, seek approval through the Florida Approved Courses and Tests Initiative, and offer it to every student in the state through the state’s online course catalog. That could help relieve some of the cost for school districts, and give students a way to take the course outside their normal school day.
The 2013 legislation creating the FACT program also contemplated dividing courses into “subparts,” allowing students to meet course requirements in batches based on what they know, rather than all at once based on their grade at the end of a semester. A report issued last year by the state Department of Education said lawmakers would need to flesh out this idea before it could be implemented.
The money course may be well-suited to such a concept.
The proposed legislation requiring it already spells out 13 specific topics to cover, from balancing a checkbook to understanding state and federal finance laws. Perhaps there are ways for students to demonstrate mastery of each of those topics, at their own pace. They could meet the requirements in a few days over the summer, or over the course of the semester, or spread out over whatever time frame works for them.
The goal is for students to carry financial literacy with them into adulthood, not necessarily to ensure that they sit through a particular class for a specific amount of time.
There are legitimate concerns about requiring every student to spend an entire semester on another required course, but it may fit more easily into a model in which, as Jeb Bush put it during a recent visit to Tallahassee, time is the variable and learning is the constant.
