Why isn't financial literacy a curriculum goal for students?

January is Financial Wellness Month. Recently, President Bush said this in response to a question being asked about the current mortgage crisis, "...a lot of people sign up to something they're not exactly sure what they're signing up for. More financial literacy, I guess, is the best way to put it. We've had a lot of really hardworking Americans sign up for loans, and the truth of the matter is they probably didn't fully understand what they were signing up for."

"And therefore," said Bush, "I do believe it's a proper role for government to enhance financial education initiatives, and we're doing that, we've got money in the budget to do that."

The causes of the sub-prime mortgage crisis won't be solved simply by teaching financial literacy to every student. Government agencies such as the Federal Reserve and the Securities and Exchange Commission were created specifically to ensure that financial markets are regulated and examined to prevent the banks and investment companies from exploiting the public.

When they fail to do this, the balance between the interests of business profits vs. consumer safety has historically always resulted in a financial crisis.

Activity: The need for more courses and information about the fundamentals of financial literacy increase each year. Insurance, 401k investments, online banking, and other financial knowledge are no longer optional for Americans. Financial knowledge is the power to make safe and wise choices that result in quality of life, and therefore need to be learned in school not by trial and error.

ProQuest wants to do its part to provide teachers with resources that help to teach these important topics. Our ProQuest Carts collection includes a variety of inquiry-based lesson plans on important current financial topics. Here are some samples:

• Business Ethics--an Oxymoron?
• Black Business and Entrepreneurship
• Stock Market Bulls and Bears
• Electronic Money
• Federal Budget Deficits and Tax Cuts

Pathfinder:

1. Access eLibrary and logon to our Teacher Edition by clicking this link.
   
   
2. Click BookCart Admin at the top.
   
   
3. Select the ProQuest Carts tab.
   
   
4. Scroll down the folders on the left to SS-Economics and Business.
   
   
5. Click the Copy icon in the Actions column to the right of the title.
   
   
6. Return to My Local Carts.
   
   
7. Repeat the process to copy additional Carts.

Your copied BookCarts will appear with "Copy of" as a title prefix. Click the BookCart Title to open the BookCart Editor, delete "Copy of" from the title, add your name in the Author box, then select Save at the bottom.

All your new BookCarts contain examples of essential questions for critical thinking to guide your students to use higher-order thinking in their reports and presentations. They also provide a place to include Student Directions for the assignment and Pathfinders to correlated print resources. So when students open the BookCart, they will see a complete lesson plan with resources, essential questions, and directions for their assignment.

PowerPoint presentations are becoming a popular way for students to present the conclusions of their research activity. ProQuest has created a student model template to help them organize and prepare these reports so that they address essential questions and integrate critical thinking.