2,000 High School Students Learn Personal Finance through the Economics Center's Financial Education Initiative (FEI)

In 2006, the Economics Center for Education & Research Chief Operations Officer, John Morris, presented testimony to the State of Ohio Senate and House of Representatives Education Subcommittees on the need for more financial education in schools. Shortly thereafter, as a part of Senate Bill 311, Ohio mandated financial literacy in all Ohio high schools as a part of a required course for graduation beginning in 2010-11. While this was great news for Ohio’s students, it was also an “unfunded mandate”. The Center immediately recognized that schools would need help with implementation and with professional development, so the Financial Education Initiative (FEI) was born.

FEI has been offering teachers professional development and developed a model high school financial education course. To date, hundreds of teachers have been trained and introduced to new teaching materials in topics such as budgeting, investing, risk and insurance. After a summer 2010 Professional Development workshop, a local teacher from St. Xavier High School, Jennifer Wiegele, stated:

“I really enjoyed the Economics Center’s financial education session the past two days. I cannot wait to go through all the great materials.”

Beyond workshops, ECER’s FEI model course was implemented at Reading High School for the purpose of evaluation. Prior to the course, students tested in line with the national average of 50% on a test of basic financial literacy. Following the course, average scores rose to an average of 80%.

In other exciting FEI news, UC is now offering two college credits to high school students that enroll in the Economics Center's rigorous course. This year approximately 2,000 students in our region will directly benefit from FEI as Reading, Mason and Madeira districts are now mandating our course for all students. Numerous other districts have adopted the Economics Center's model as an elective course.

Contact John Morris at 513.556.5198 or email john.morris@uc.edu to find out what your local schools are doing to meet the new high school financial education graduation requirements.