By Daniel Thompson

In This Issue:

2016 National Economics Challenge
Note From Nan
Focus on the Arizona Council on Economic Education
Financial Literacy Month
Survey of the States By the Numbers
Election 2016
CEE Programs
CEE Events
Visionary Awards

The post CEE Report – Summer 2016 appeared first on Council for Economic Education.

POSTED: August 15, 2016 | BY: brendan

By Daniel Thompson

IT’S ELECTION SEASON

And we want to get K-12 students thinking about the next president and the economic future of the country. That’s why we’re inviting you to participate in our election video contest!

WHAT SHOULD THE VIDEO BE ABOUT?

We’re asking you to record one student, or a group of students, answering the following question in 60 seconds or less:

“WHAT SHOULD THE NEXT PRESIDENT DO TO IMPROVE THE ECONOMY?”

BE CREATIVE! Video entries must be less than 60 seconds. All entries must be submitted before September 30th, 2016.

WINNERS & PRIZES

There are two winners for the CEE Video contest:

Viewers’ Choice will be selected by popular vote (voting begins October 3rd, 2016). The Economists’ Choice will be selected by CEE’s panel of judges. Winning teams (2) will receive a $500 AMEX gift card for the teacher and $25 AMEX gift cards for each participating student. Winners will be announced on October 12, 2016.

READY TO ENTER?

Please review the rules and FAQs before entering the contest. Teachers must enter the videos on behalf of their students. Teachers may enter more than one video per class.

CEE is a bipartisan non-profit organization; videos cannot mention candidates’ names. Videos that fail to meet this requirement will not be approved.

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NEED SOME INSPIRATION?

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COMPLIMENTARY LESSON PLANS

While your students are busy putting their videos together, bolster their learning experience with lessons on the election cycle and the U.S government.

• Economic Misery and Presidential Elections (gr. 9-12): Teach about how two economic measures, the Misery Index and the growth rate in real GDP per capita, can be used to make predictions about presidential elections.
• Money and Elections (gr. 9-12): Students will be introduced to the sources of campaign war chests, learning about the recent court decisions that have allowed for the creation of “Super PACS” and 501 (c) (4) organizations.
• Immigration (gr. 6-12): This lesson helps students better understand immigration, a major issue in the 2016 presidential election.
• Voters and Elections (gr. 6-8): Students identify costs associated with voting. Then they make predictions about who might be more likely to vote based on their understanding of opportunity costs.
• President Obama’s Allowance (gr. 3-5): In this lesson, students will identify different expenses in the US budget and will decide on the order of importance for different expenses.

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PROMOTE THE CONTEST

Get other teachers and students involved in the video contest. We’ve put together some images to help you spread the word.

To use an image, follow these easy steps:

1. Choose which image you want to include on your web site from the options below.
2. Copy and paste the corresponding HTML code into your web page

Triple-click the text to select

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Triple-click the text to select

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Triple-click the text to select

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Triple-click the text to select

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The post 2016 Student Video Contest appeared first on Council for Economic Education.

POSTED: August 15, 2016 | BY: brendan

By Daniel Thompson

FINRA Investor Education Foundation released its 2016 National Financial Capability Study (NFCS) and its findings show that while most Americans are growing more financially capable, there are still millions who struggle with making ends meet – particularly women, millennials, African-Americans, Hispanics, and those lacking a high school education. These findings are drawn from studies that go back to 2009 when the first survey was conducted. Subsequent surveys were conducted in 2012 and 2015.

Among the study’s most significant findings:

• 56% of respondents with financially dependent children said that they have not set aside money for their children’s college education.
• Hispanics and African-Americans are much more likely to use high-cost forms of borrowing like pawn shops and payday loans compared to whites—39 percent for African-Americans, 34 percent for Hispanics and 21 percent for whites; and
• Only 37 percent of respondents are considered to have high financial literacy, meaning they could answer four or more questions on a five-question financial literacy quiz—down from 39 percent in 2012 and 42 percent in 2009.

Based on these findings, it is clear that CEE’s mission is crucial in closing the gap between those who are financially capable and those who are not. To learn more about how you can make a difference in your local community or state, visit our Survey of the States page and take action to help us ensure every student in the U.S. receives a personal finance education.

The survey’s full data set, methodology and related questionnaire are available at USFinancialCapability.org.

The post New FINRA Study Shows The Need For More Personal Finance Education In Our Schools appeared first on Council for Economic Education.

POSTED: July 15, 2016 | BY: brendan

By Daniel Thompson

The post Save the Date! appeared first on Council for Economic Education.

POSTED: May 18, 2016 | BY: brendan

By April Somboun

Last month was Financial Literacy Month and we teamed up with social media entrepreneur, Natalie Zfat on the #MySavingsStory video campaign.

Throughout the entire month of April, we shared personal video stories from writers, artists and economists to inform and inspire kids to understand and take control of their financial lives.

We received savings advice from fashion designer Elie Tahari, best-selling author of Diary of A Wimpy Kid, Jeff Kinney, entrepreneur Rosie Pope, President of the Richmond Fed, Jeffrey Lacker and others who shared what they’ve learned about the importance of financial literacy and saving.

Read Natalie’s post about the campaign and make sure to check out the compilation video with all the great advice!

The post Post Campaign Round Up: #MySavingsStory appeared first on Council for Economic Education.

POSTED: May 13, 2016 | BY: brendan

By April Somboun

The Council for Economic Education is pleased to announce the release of a series of lesson plans to help educators (grades 9-12) teach the election and economics in their economics, civics, government, and other social studies courses. The lessons are all available for free on our teacher website EconEdLink.

Topics covered include:

• Can Election Futures Markets Be More Accurate Than Polls?
• Voters and Elections (Who Votes and Why?)
• Money and Elections, Economic Misery and Presidential Elections, and more

Throughout the summer, additional lessons will be added on important campaign topics as the campaign continues to unfold, and CEE will also be hosting a free webinar for teachers on how to incorporate these lessons into their classrooms.

To ensure that you receive information about upcoming webinars and new materials available on EconEdLink, you can register for free at the following URL: www.econedlink.org/register.

If you have any questions, please contact April Somboun.

The post New Topic on EconEdLink: Election Economics appeared first on Council for Economic Education.

POSTED: May 4, 2016 | BY: brendan

By April Somboun

The post 2016 National Economics Challenge Finalists! appeared first on Council for Economic Education.

POSTED: April 29, 2016 | BY: brendan

By April Somboun

Thousands of high school students nationwide competed in the National Economics Challenge! We are delighted to share with you the 34 teams from the Adam Smith Division and 33 teams from the David Ricardo Division who have made it to the semi-finals.

The teams will now compete in the semi-finals for a chance to advance to final round which will be held in New York City! Four teams from each Division with the highest scores will advance to compete for the grand prize and be crowned the National Economics Challenge Champions.

Thank you to all the students and their coaches who participated in the first round of competitions. We hope this was a valuable experience to all of you. And, good luck to the semi-finalists!

To learn more about the National Economics Challenge and keep tab on the finalists, please visit our site: www.nationaleconomicschallenge.org.

The post 2016 Semi-Finalists: National Economics Challenge appeared first on Council for Economic Education.

POSTED: April 20, 2016 | BY: brendan

By April Somboun

Written by: Brian Page, Chair, Council for Economic Education Teacher Advisory Council

Later this spring, high schools across the country will be graduating students from a world of test scores to a world of credit scores. Many teens will unknowingly be making decisions that will impact them in the decade to come. Yet most lawmakers have fallen short of respecting personal finance as a dedicated subject worthy of stand alone classes required for graduation, taught by teachers trained to teach it well. It’s time we work together to advocate on behalf of high school students to prepare them for the real world.

High school science, math and language arts teachers receive content specific instruction in college, and are required to pass content specific tests to earn teacher certification. Personal finance… not so much. Often times when mandates are passed, they require the integration of personal finance into other coursework. The mandate is often dumped into the laps of teachers who have never been trained to teach personal finance.

A FINRA Investor Education Foundation-funded study, State Financial Education Mandates: It’s All in the Implementation, examined the effectiveness of state mandates on financial education for high-school students. The study noted that if a rigorous financial education program is carefully implemented, it can improve the credit scores and lower the probability of credit delinquency for young adults. In other words, we need to train our teachers, require semester courses devoted to personal finance, and use hands on teaching methods that focus on relevant content.

NCLB aside, our country has historically been a locally controlled education system. This changed following the financial collapse in 2008. Somehow a banking collapse led to education “reform”, and schools were faced with a multitude of new evaluation systems and testing requirements. Subsequently, schools and lawmakers now seem to lack the appetite to pass further education mandates. This should not preclude us from trying, using a common sense approach that does not further burden our schools. I’m confident that if asked, parents and teens would be much happier about recent reform efforts if standardized test scores were a little less important, and helping them build their own credit scores were a little more important.

The post Graduating From Test Scores to Credit Scores appeared first on Council for Economic Education.

POSTED: April 7, 2016 | BY: brendan

By April Somboun

Written by: Matthew Gherman 11/12th Grade Teacher of AP Economics, American History, ELL Global History at Edward R. Murrow High School, Brooklyn, NY. Matthew received the 2015 Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Teaching Champion Award.

Personal finance is a lot like relationships. They’re both taboo subjects in which everyone professes their advice and expertise, but in reality each is a very imprecise science. For high school students, these two topics are numbers one and two in terms of their curiosity (personal finance is probably a distant, but strong, second place). The curiosity and eagerness that surround this topic are what makes it fun to teach. Students are familiar with many of the terms: interest rates, stocks, bonds, checking account, credit cards, credit score; yet there is so much room for exploration and enlightenment. For both finance and relationships there is wisdom that would be helpful to know at the age of 18, but is only earned from life experience. Therefore, the best approach to teaching the subject incorporates knowledge learned by trial and error, paving the road for the next generation.

Also at the age of 18, these are topics that might seem far away, but really they are much closer and include situations that students need to be ready for. Students need to understand that their credit score is their life GPA, and they need to start building it now and learning how to build it now. At 18, they can open up an investment account and learn how to begin to grow their money at a rate faster than a savings account. They need to begin building that big savings for important purchases that will all possibly come within a decade: college, car, apartment, engagement ring, marriage, home and children. Many of these are concepts that they probably shrug at as “not my problem now,” but that decade goes by fast, and with it a lot of missed opportunity to improve their futures. The savings and investing which will make each stage of their lives easier starts at 18 (or even earlier) and the teacher is the provider of all of this information. The questions and enthusiasm that they bring to class enhance the teaching experience exponentially.

The ease with which these topics can be differentiated is also a great selling point for teaching it. Depending on student strengths, your lessons can range from just reviewing the basics to dissecting and debating scholarly articles and evaluating political implications. There is also opportunity for independent research, web-quests and presentation projects which add a different flavor to the class. Additionally, teachers aren’t limited by being shackled to a state test at the end of the year. This subject allows creativity for both teachers and students.

Personal finance is strongly connected to the civic responsibility of voting. So many times politics is reduced to sound bites, preying on an uneducated class of voters. There are many social political issues that are shades of gray and fun to debate, but ultimately, the questions all students should have on their minds are what does the government do with our money and what are the implications of government actions on our wages, healthcare, investments, mortgages, and income taxes. Teaching personal finance creates a better informed and responsible citizenry.

The most important aspect of teaching personal finance is that these are life skills. This is the most useful course that students will take in high school because it will help them to be college ready, career ready, and life ready.

The post Personal Finance Is A Lot Like Relationships appeared first on Council for Economic Education.

POSTED: April 5, 2016 | BY: brendan