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01/04/2017 | Research Triangle Park | The News & Observer
Teaching teachers the ins and outs of financial literacy
David Ranii | The News & Observer | Twitter
Chelsea Kozlowski asked for a show of hands from those who have failed, at one time or another in their adult life, to pay a bill on time.
Roughly 60 teachers raised their hands.
Then she asked who had used one credit card to pay the balance of another credit card. A smattering of hands went up.
And so it went at a one-day financial literacy training session, held earlier this month at Fidelity Investments’ RTP campus. The free session, conducted by the giant mutual fund company and the nonprofit N.C. Council on Economic Education was designed to provide K-12 teachers from across the state with the basics of managing their personal finances so they can avoid these pitfalls. Even more importantly, it aimed to provide those teachers with effective ways to pass that financial savvy on to their students.
“It’s the idea that you can’t teach something until you feel confident that you have a mastery of the subject matter,” said Tom Ryan, senior vice president and one of three regional leaders of North Carolina operations for Fidelity, which employs about 4,000 workers in RTP. “So how can a teacher get in front of a classroom and explain these complex topics if they themselves aren’t feeling confident in their own personal lives about it?”
A 2009 study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin – Madison found that just 37 percent of K-12 teachers nationwide had ever taken a college course with “financial education related content.” Fewer than 20 percent of the teachers surveyed reported that they felt “very competent” to teach personal finance topics such as financial planning and money management.
To read more visit The News & Observer
Lawmaker seeks more student financial literacy
Rory Linnane & Keegan Kyle | Post-Crescent | Twitter
For Appleton high schoolers, there are moments when it clicks.
Plotting out their futures, they add up the cost of college tuition and living expenses. They look at the projected income of their prospective career. They calculate the weight of student loans attached to their plans. It sinks in.
That often makes them rethink their assumptions about college, said Rita O’Brien, dean of career-based learning for Appleton public schools. Maybe they’ll consider a community college. Maybe they’ll buckle down on scholarship applications, or get a part-time job. At least they’ll see what’s coming before it hits them.
O’Brien said Appleton schools have long required students to take a class in personal finance to prepare them for such realities. But at last count, many Wisconsin school districts did not require a personal finance course.
O’Brien said she would like to see state funding to support more school districts in adding personal finance courses. Lawmakers are considering pushing for statewide education requirements in financial literacy, although it’s unclear whether they would include funding with the mandate.
To read more visit Post-Crescent
01/04/2017 | Clarksville, TN | Education Week
States Beef Up School Counseling Corps
Catherine Gewertz | Education Week | Twitter
Several states are making investments to build their corps of school counselors in the wake of mounting, quantifiable evidence that counseling support can be a powerful weapon in the battle to get more students through high school and into college.
Minnesota recently announced a $12 million effort to send counselors, social workers, nurses, and school psychologists into 77 schools. College advisers joined the counseling staffs in 30 high schools in Tennessee this fall, thanks to a $7.2 million, three-year pot of money. Colorado is piling millions on top of a $15 million investment because it got such strong results.
To read more visit Education Week
Transfer Students Deserve Better Road Maps
Stephen J. Handel | The Chronicle of Higher Education | Twitter
The challenges that face community-college students who want a four-year degree are well documented. We encourage our least-prepared students to start college at two-year institutions because they have no admission requirements and are far less.
To read more visit The Chronicle of Higher Education
01/04/2017 | Dubai | Gulf News Health
Getting children to a positive place through the pages of a book
Sanya Nayeem | Gulf News | Twitter
Picture a hospital – are you seeing a place of grim truths, where fluorescent-lit corridors lead you to stark white rooms?
A reading initiative is changing that. Now, in several hospitals across the UAE, you can walk down one of those corridors and hear laughter; turn into one of those rooms and find an explosion of colour, with children letting their imagination run wild.
It’s all thanks to Wanna Read? – a non-profit organisation created in 2013, by Shaikha Shamma bint Sultan bin Khalifa Al Nahyan. The initiative builds libraries in pediatric wards of hospitals and encourages healing through reading.
Shaikha Shamma told Gulf News: “Our three main goals are to promote literacy amongst young patients, encourage parental engagement and inspire greater community service. Hospitalised children are the most vulnerable in our society, and there can be a stigma attached to ill health, as well as an understandable fear and anxiety when a family discovers their child is unwell. I believe that through community engagement, parents benefit from a little respite time which can help them cope with what they’re going through.”
To read more visit Gulf News
To learn more about Wanna Read? Visit their site
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- The Daily Cardinal – Peer facilitated courses offer students lessons for current, post-college finances
- Vermontbiz – Center for Financial Literacy gets $120,000 grant for teacher training, will restart Champlain College summer program
- University of Delaware – FINANCIAL LITERACY EDUCATION
