Personal Finance Curriculum Analysis

Changing the curriculum by making personal finance classes required, or a part of a required class, and incorporating more difficult topics are other possible ways for the continued improvement of personal finance classes. As seen in the wide variety of current curriculum standards across the United States, there is no formulated way that students are being taught and these ranges between the differences are quite wide. Some are more specific so their implementation may be easier for teachers when compared to the vague ones that leave more to the teacher’s creation. The curriculum should also be changed in order to be more effective and cover a few particular topics. Personal finance includes a wide variety of issues and not all of it could …show more content…
In one study conducted by Cazilia Loibl and Patti J. Fisher from the Ohio State University and the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, the authors looked at the implementation of personal finance standards in three different subjects, including social studies/economics, family and consumer sciences, and business education (Loibl and Fisher 17). All three of the classes had different approaches to the standards. Business education teachers spent more time on personal finance concepts throughout the class and family and consumer science teachers spent the least, although focused the most, in terms of personal finance, on “credit, goal-setting, and budgeting content” (22). In the conclusion of their study, they found that the best possible option for the implementation of personal finance standards is within social studies classes. This is because social studies is a required class, whereas both business education and family and consumer sciences were electives, which “tended to attract lower enrollment and lack of financial resources to purchase technology equipment” …show more content…
While right now there are no long term studies that show the effectiveness of these classes because of their relative newness, hopefully students with more financial knowledge will be able to make more educated decisions about their finances. The economic benefits of this has the potential to be great, educating people so that they understand the full impact of their decisions. However, in both cases, “such programs are not just good for the individual but also helpful to society” (Pelletier 2). Therefore, while personal finance education is working in some high school systems, there are still improvements, such as increased student motivation, additional teacher education, and curriculum changes that need to be made so that every high school student has the same opportunity to learn the financial skills that will help them in their