School News
Study examines how Ohio high schools teach personal finance
By Martha Filipic, Ohio State University
Jan 1, 2008

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- As part of a new state mandate, all Ohio high schools will be teaching personal financial education by 2010. A new Ohio State University study reveals what's currently being taught in such classes, which teachers are leading those courses, and what they believe they need to meet the new requirements.

Caezilia Loibl, a family financial management specialist with Ohio State University Extension, surveyed teachers throughout Ohio last spring about their experiences teaching money management in the classroom. A total of 710 who taught personal finance in the classroom during 2006-07 completed the survey. She found that a broad spectrum of teachers, from family and consumer sciences teachers to business education teachers, currently teach some type of financial education to their students.

"No one has ever collected this kind of data," said Loibl, who is also an assistant professor of consumer sciences in the College of Education and Human Ecology. "I hope these findings give the Ohio Department of Education and other state agencies the information they need to implement the new law."

>From the survey, which was distributed to 1,145 Ohio high schools, Loibl found that most personal finance curricula was taught by family and consumer science teachers (38 percent) or business education teachers (33 percent). Social studies teachers (20 percent) also often taught the subject. Teaching it to a lesser degree were math, science, technology, and agricultural science teachers (6 percent total), and other teachers, including English and fine arts (3 percent).

Not surprisingly, different teachers tended to focus on different personal finance topics in the classroom, Loibl found. Family and consumer sciences teachers were more likely to teach credit, budgeting, and financial goal-setting, while business teachers were more likely to focus on tax topics, credit and insurance and social studies teachers were more likely to teach about investments, taxes, and limited-resources topics.

When asked about challenges they encountered when teaching personal finance, teachers across disciplines were concerned about a lack of classroom time (42 percent) and materials, such as lesson plans and student handouts (39 percent) to properly teach personal finance topics. They also were concerned about lacking the time to stay current with changes in personal finance (30 percent) and about information overload (29 percent). Family and consumer sciences teachers reported the highest concerns about student interest in the topic (35 percent), suitable curricula (26 percent) and not having enough subject-matter knowledge (21 percent). Business education teachers were most concerned about a disinterest of school administration in teaching the topic (26 percent). Social studies teachers were more concerned about classroom time (56 percent) and materials (51 percent).

The survey also quizzed the teachers on their own knowledge of personal finance topics, such as when is the best time to transfer money into a long-term bond fund, and what is the average credit score in the United States. Only two of the respondents answered all nine questions correctly. Only three questions were answered correctly by more than half of the teachers. Teachers from different disciplines had different strengths. For example, business education teachers (who earned the highest scores, overall) were more likely to know that negative financial information can stay on a person's credit report for seven to 10 years, while social studies teachers were more likely to know the best average returns over the last 20 years have been generated by stocks in comparison with other investment options.

"I think this survey shows that different teacher groups need to be targeted differently with continuing education offerings," Loibl said.

Loibl presented her findings this fall to the Commission on Personal Finance Education of the office of the Ohio Treasurer of State. Ohio Treasurer Richard Cordray has made personal finance education a key initiative of his administration, and has organized Teachers Academy workshops, often in conjunction with Ohio State University Extension, to help update teachers in personal finance topics.

Loibl's study was funded by Ohio State's P-12 project, a university-wide partnership focused on improving Ohio's schools. Her report is available to download online at http://p12.osu.edu/scholars.php.