Remarks by Laura Levine
Making Education Aspirationally Relevant
First, let me commend and congratulate Operation Hope for convening the HOPE Global Financial Literacy Summit in Washington, DC. Although I don’t live “east of the River” myself, as a resident of the District of Columbia, I’m proud that THEARC, in one of our sometimes overlooked neighborhoods, was host to this important gathering.
Operation Hope founder John Bryant often talks about making financial education “aspirational”—and he’s right. For young people to understand, absorb, and apply this critical educational content, they need to see how it corresponds to their own hopes and dreams. I would, however, like to suggest that simply putting personal finance content into the educational system is the first step in making it aspirationally relevant.
Imagine you’re the child of recent immigrants who barely understand the language here, let alone the financial system. Imagine your parent or parents work multiple jobs for which they are paid in cash—or if they receive a paycheck, they cash it at the local check casher—and you are growing up in an “unbanked” household. Imagine your parents have filed for bankruptcy or, worse yet, have lost their home because they didn’t have a good enough understanding of their financial obligations…
Where do you go to obtain the financial knowledge that could make your aspirations a reality? In fact, where do you learn that your aspirations are possible at all?
And while we focus on the needs of those less fortunate, we recognize that low levels of financial literacy are not confined to low income neighborhoods. Many parents of all socio-economic levels, struggling to understand the ever-changing financial services landscape, sometimes lack confidence in their ability to teach their own kids about money management. Others, working harder than ever to provide a comfortable life for their families can’t stretch the quality time left for their kids to adequately cover all the topics they want to address.
By making personal finance part of every student’s education, I think we can help to level the playing field for those students who may not be getting financial guidance at home—for whatever reason—and put them on a path toward realizing their dreams. In some cases, classroom-based financial education not only benefits the students, but the parents and other family members with whom they share what they’ve learned.
Through rigorous, standards-based financial education, we can help to ensure that students are getting unbiased information covering the many facets of personal finance, from what they need to know right now, to what they’ll need for a safe and secure future. Beyond just information, good financial education will help them to develop the skills they’ll need to make sound financial decisions throughout their lives.
If effective financial education is introduced early enough, it could help troubled or unmotivated students start to make the connection between staying in school and their life-long income earning potential—possibly changing the path of would-be drop-outs. Well rounded financial education, covering careers, income, and entrepreneurship, may help young people envision themselves in a future that they might not have otherwise imagined.
While I believe that personal finance content must be part of every student’s formal education because so many of them are not getting enough of this guidance at home, I don’t think it’s an either/or question. Parents should still be their own kids’ first money management teachers—even if only to instill the basic values of saving and planning. And all parents should encourage conversation about finance and ask their children’s teachers, administrators, and youth program leaders about introducing financial literacy activities into their agenda.
While many states have begun to require some amount of financial education for their students and while there are already many outstanding financial education programs and resources currently in use around the country, we clearly need to do more.
If we’re to remain the land of opportunity, we need education that ensures our children—all of our children—have the information and ability to make the most of the opportunities this country offers. I think that financial education can make the difference between young people having dreams and young people having plans. And this, I believe, makes it aspirationally relevant to their parents, their families, and their communities.
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