Jump$tart Coalition to publish national standards for personal financial literacyMortgagePress.comJump$tart Coalition, national standards, Charles Schwab Foundation, Credit Union National Association
The Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy has
announced it will use a grant from Charles Schwab Foundation to
publish and distribute nationwide 100,000 copies of the third
edition of its National Standards in K12 Personal Finance
Education. These standards, created by the Jump$tart Coalition in
conjunction with educational and financial services experts,
delineate the personal finance knowledge and skills that K12
students should possess and will be distributed through the Federal
Consumer Information Center (FCIC) in Pueblo, Colo.
"The Charles Schwab Foundation is very pleased to partner with
the Jump$tart Coalition on this significant project," said Carrie
Schwab-Pomerantz, president of Charles Schwab Foundation. "It's
very important that teachers and parents have objective benchmarks
and standards to evaluate personal finance curricula, and the
Jump$tart Coalition is the premier organization in developing and
defining this type of information."
This offering be published in the FCIC Fall Catalog, but FCIC
will also send a special alert to teachers across the country. FCIC
brings together an array of U.S. Government information and
services and makes them accessible to the publicon the Internet,
via e-mail, in print, or over the telephone.
The National Standards, which were originally created in 1998
and updated in 2002, can be used to shape lesson plans and course
outlines, to evaluate educational materials and to develop
educational requirements. The standards identify not only what
students should know in a variety of personal finance subject
matter areas, but also specify benchmarks of knowledge and skills
by 4th, 8th and 12th grades.
"Jump$tart intends for these national standards to represent the
framework for an ideal personal finance curriculum," said Laura
Levine, executive director of the national, not-for-profit
organization. "In addition, the Jump$tart Coalition believes that
one of the most important issues that needed to be addressed is
definingobjectivelywhat financial literacy is, which is done in
these standards."
Philip Heckman, director of Youth Programs for the Credit Union
National Association (CUNA) and Rosella Bannister, director of the
Jump$tart Clearinghouse for Personal Financial Literacy, led the
revisions task force. The Federal Reserve Board donated the graphic
design and printing of the original edition of the book, which is
also available online at www.jumpstart.org/guide.html.
For more information, visit www.jumpstartclearinghouse.org.
