The Unique Power and Perspective of Educators
From the front lines, you know how important financial education is to the future of the kids you teach every day. And you’re in a unique position to help those kids get financial education early and often, so that they have the opportunity to incorporate and practice these skills before they’re attempting to manage student loans and college living expenses on their own. And we want to help you do it.
Two Roles
Many of you also experience the education system from both sides: as a parent and as an educator. You understand better than anyone why families and schools need to work together to overcome obstacles, pool knowledge, and connect as advocates for expanding financial education in America. But everything starts with knowing the current status of financial education in your schools. And that’s where we could really use your help.
As a parent (or grandparent, guardian, family member, friend, or neighbor), we hope you’ll start on our Parents Page and tell us about financial education at your own kids’ school. If it’s not the school where you work, you can help us start the conversation there. Your clout as a parent and your credibility as an educator are a potent combination.
As an educator, you recognize that to be effective, financial education must be start with reliable educational resources taught by qualified, confident teachers. The finance, education, and research experts on Jump$tart’s Education Committee developed Essential Elements of Effective Financial Education to help inform and inspire classroom based-financial education at all grade levels.
With that in mind, we’ve created a special Educators Toolkit with resources, best practices, and content to help you bring financial education to your school—or to improve what is presently offered. You can also help us by using the Educators’ Add Your School form to tell us about financial education where you work. Don’t worry—it isn’t a formal reporting mechanism; if you tell us that the financial education doesn’t quite meet our essential elements, that just helps us better understand how we might be able to help.
Nearly 100 teachers from across the country offered feedback as we created this toolkit and the Check Your School campaign. But, we’re also always eager to hear from you about new ideas, brainstorm solutions to obstacles, and improve our existing materials. So feel free to contact us!
