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America's race to the top in education is likely responsible for the financial illiteracy crisis

We were once chastised for schools focusing "too much" on preparing kids for adulthood.

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America's competition with Russia likely created the U.S. financial literacy crisis

There are often jokes about kids not knowing how to write a check or how to do other basic adulting tasks, though no one really writes checks anymore. But it's not just teens or young adults that lack some of these basic life skills, there are people in their 30s and 40s that don't fully understand how interest works.

Due to economic disparities across the country, all schools don't receive the same standard education. Some schools require students to take classes like life skills, adult skills, career readiness, or financial literacy classes as part of their graduation requirements. In other schools they're there as electives while some schools don't offer those classes at all leaving students underprepared for adulthood.

This wasn't always the case though, at one point in the history of American education, these sorts of classes were the norm. This ensured that students graduating in America had basic financial literacy and adult skills. So what happened?

  man and woman sitting on chairs  Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash  

"Based on old teaching materials, it seems that up until the fifties or sixties, money management was a fixture in the public school curriculum, often as part of home economics class. Alongside, you know, sewing and baking, students were learning how to budget for better living, use consumer credit and save for their weddings. There were also stand along consumer education classes, which seemed to be less gendered." Vox says.

Public schools shifted from this useful norm in 1958 when President Eisenhower signed the National Defense Education Act after feeling America was falling behind Russia. This was during the big race to get into outer space and Russia, then known as the USSR, seemed to be coming out ahead. The bill was designed to focus on core classes like math, science and a foreign language, but after the Department of Education was formed, their first report was scathing.

  grayscale photography of children sitting inside room  Photo by Austrian National Library on Unsplash  

In 1983, the Department of Education released a report titled "The Imperative for Education Reform," which basically blamed the country's "declining educational performance" on schools focus on adulthood.

"Twenty-five percent of the credits earned by general track high school students are in physical and health education, work experience outside the school, remedial English and mathematics, and personal service and development courses, such as training for adulthood and marriage," the report scolds.

This sharp critique resulted in several subsequent presidents to focus on ways to measure educational progress in the areas Eisenhower and the Department of Education originally outlined. Standardized testing became a heavy source of measurement, oftentimes tied to teachers maintaining their employment. For many students this meant their education revolved around the teacher prioritizing items that would be measured on the standardized test.


The shift to strict measurement of growth via standardized testing caused students to fall behind on other much needed skills. Americans have been noticing the shift in not only adult skills, but financial literacy and it's been a multi-decade slide that seems to be changing trajectory in recent years.

In a 2019 National Bureau of Economic Research study, researchers report that 57% of U.S. adults are financially illiterate. Vox reports that over the past decades more students are spending full semesters in financial literacy classes, learning things like budgeting, taxes, student loans and more. Though more states are offering these courses to high school students, only nine states have a stand-alone financial literacy course as a graduation requirement.

Other states offer the lessons within the framework of another class or as a stand-alone elective course, though in 2024 seven additional states introduced legislation to make the course mandatory. Financial literacy not only helps the individual, but their family and eventually the economy, so hopefully we will see these personal finance courses reintroduced nationwide.

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Education

Librarian exposes how book bans can happen without us noticing

“They’re counting on you not noticing."

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"It’s easy to not see when something that’s that small disappears.”

Last year, the American Library Association (ALA) reported 938 attempts to challenge 4,240 unique titles in schools and libraries across the US. With statistics like that, one might imagine vacant, empty shelves with only a handful of titles available.

But in reality, book bans are much more insidious. Just take it from a librarian herself. Hayley DeRoche, known by her Instagram and TikTok followers as Sad Beige, showed just how easy it is for censorship, as impactful as it is, to go completely unnoticed.

In her video, DeRoche shows an unassuming bookshelf in her library, with a display of random books. She then cuts, asking if the viewer notices anything different. (remember those games?)

And while, sure, one can tell there is a difference, it’s hard to detect how different it is. Turns out, eight books were removed. Just like that.

“Did you notice?” she asks. “They’re counting on people not noticing that the books that they don’t want you to access are gone.”

 
 @sadbeige Replying to @ShaniaTwang #bannedbooks #library #booktok ♬ original sound - SadBeige 
 
 

This somewhat counters that narrative many of us have in our heads that only the very controversial titles are possibly on the chopping block. Some books we’ve never heard of might disappear. Meaning our kids lose the opportunity to stumble upon new ideas that open them up in unexpected ways…which, isn’t that, at least partially, what books exist for in the first place?

And then is the point DeRoche drove home in her clip, saying “You won’t notice at first because when you look around [a library] can you see specifically what books are on the shelves? Can you really see what ideas are being presented here? No! You can’t. It’s easy to not see when something that’s that small disappears.”

 
 @sadbeige they don’t want you to have beans #greenscreen ♬ original sound - SadBeige 
 
 

She went on to say that “they’re counting on you not noticing. They’re counting on you not going to council meetings where they are talking about these things. They’re counting on everyone being so overwhelmed that the public library facing book bans falls off people’s radars.”

Overwhelm is certainly what many librarians are experiencing, DeRoche noted, explaining how many eventually acquiesce to censorship demands, “in part to save themselves from having to completely disappear from the community entirely.” Some states, like Texas and Alabama, are creating laws in which librarians even face prosecution for providing certain works of literature to students, titles like The Odyssey, Catcher in the Rye, Brave New World, and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.

 
 @sadbeige I forget sometimes that not everyone knows this!! So quick overview if you’re new to library advocacy or want to share with folks who are ❤️📚🫡 #library #bannedbooks #librariansoftiktok #educational #educationalpurposes #explainer #greenscreensticker ♬ original sound - SadBeige 
 
 

Point being: librarians and teachers are doing their best, but that effort can only go so far. As DeRoche warned, those putting these rules in place are banking on the fact that parents won’t be proactively working to stop it.

Here are a few ways to do so, courtesy of Pen America:

1. Contact your state and federal elected officials to sign the pledge: #DontCensorAmerica.

2. Send a postcard to an author or librarian, or share your story on social media with the hashtag #FreeTheBooks

3.Notify PEN America if book bans are happening in your community

4. Participate in School Board Elections

Text “READ” to 26797 for more information from Let America Read and to register to vote.

5. Attend a School or Library Board Meeting

They even have tips on what to say at school board meetings, as well as a sample letter to share with a school or library.

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Schools

A dad's hilarious letter to school asks them to explain why they're living in 1968

"I look forward to this being rectified and my daughter and other girls at the school being returned to this millennium."

Earlier in the week, Stephen Callaghan's daughter Ruby came home from school. When he asked her how her day was, her answer made him raise an eyebrow. Ruby, who's in the sixth grade at her school in Australia, told her dad that the boys would soon be taken on a field trip to Bunnings (a hardware chain in the area) to learn about construction.

The girls, on the other hand? While the boys were out learning, they would be sent to the library to have their hair and makeup done. Ruby's reply made Callaghan do a double take. What year was it, again? Callaghan decided to write a letter to the school sharing his disappointment — but his wasn't your typical "outraged parent" letter.


"Dear Principal," he began. "I must draw your attention to a serious incident which occurred yesterday at your school where my daughter is a Year 6 student."

"When Ruby left for school yesterday it was 2017," Callaghan continued. "But when she returned home in the afternoon she was from 1968."

The letter goes on to suggest that perhaps the school is harboring secret time-travel technology or perhaps has fallen victim to a rift in the "space-time continuum," keeping his daughter in an era where women were relegated to domestic life by default.

"I look forward to this being rectified and my daughter and other girls at the school being returned to this millennium where school activities are not sharply divided along gender lines," he concluded.



Dear Principal
I must draw your attention to a serious incident which occurred yesterday at your school where my daughter Ruby is a Year 6 student.
When Ruby left for school yesterday it was 2017 but when she returned home in the afternoon she was from 1968.
I know this to be the case as Ruby informed me that the "girls" in Year 6 would be attending the school library to get their hair and make-up done on Monday afternoon while the "boys" are going to Bunnings.
Are you able to search the school buildings for a rip in the space-time continuum? Perhaps there is a faulty Flux Capacitor hidden away in the girls toilet block.
I look forward to this being rectified and my daughter and other girls at the school being returned to this millennium where school activities are not sharply divided along gender lines.
Yours respectfully
Stephen Callaghan

When Callaghan posted the letter to Twitter, it quickly went viral and inspired hundreds of supportive responses.

Though most people who saw his response to the school's egregiously outdated activities applauded him, not everyone was on board.

One commenter wrote, "Sometimes it is just ok for girls to do girl things."

But Callaghan was ready for that. "Never said it wasn't," he replied. "But you've missed the point. Why 'girl things' or 'boy things'... Why not just 'things anyone can do?'"

He later commented that he didn't think the school's plan was malicious, but noted the incident was a powerful example of "everyday sexism" at work.

Callaghan says the school hasn't responded to his letter. (Yes, he really sent it.) At least, not directly to him.

Some media outlets have reported that the school claims students are free to opt in and out of the different activities. But, as Callaghan says, gendering activities like this in the first place sends the completely wrong message.

In response to the outpouring of support, Callaghan again took to Twitter.

"At 12 years of age my daughter is starting to notice there are plenty of people prepared to tell her what she can and can't do based solely on the fact she is female," he wrote.

"She would like this to change. So would I."


This article originally appeared eight years ago.

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Education

A college student who was fed up with his classmate has gone viral for calling out his own ignorance

Don't judge a book by its cover.

You know that feeling you get when you walk into a classroom and see someone else's stuff on your desk?

OK, sure, there are no assigned seats, but you've been sitting at the same desk since the first day and everyone knows it.

So why does the guy who sits next to you put his phone, his book, his charger, his lunch, and his laptop in the space that's rightfully yours? It's annoying.


All you want to do was walk in, sit down, get out your notebook and (try to) pay attention. But now? Now you've got to talk to a stranger about moving their stuff and there goes your day, already bogged down with petty annoyances.

Sound familiar? It should.

We've all got so much to do these days that interacting with people we see every day — not our friends, but our classmates, fellow commuters, co-workers, the people in line for coffee with us every day — can feel like a burden.

So, when these people do something we perceive as annoying, like putting their stuff on our desks, we don't have the time or the energy to assume their intentions or think about the lives they're leading.

But if we stepped out of ourselves for a second, we might just realize that we're all much more connected than we think, that our preconceived notions of others are usually just that — preconceived. And, often, inaccurate.

That's why this Twitter story about a guy who learned an important life lesson from a classmate he was frustrated with is going viral.

It's the perfect example of that "don't judge a book by its cover" adage we should have all learned in preschool but sometimes forget. And it starts the exact same way as this post — with a college student groaning on the inside as he sees someone's stuff on his desk.





If not for this one day running late, McFall may have never realized what his classmate was trying to do. And he may have continued to think of him as annoying, maybe telling others about "the weird guy who was always trying to take up my space"... when all the guy was really trying to do was be kind.

We all misinterpret the actions of others sometimes. It's easy to do that!

But if there's one thing this story reminds us, it's that it's important to stop and remember that while you're living your life, other people are living theirs, so assuming best intentions can do us a great favor.

That's why we should step outside of our bubbles and engage with the world on a regular basis.

You could make a new friend. You might brighten someone's day.

But most importantly, getting out of your own head, checking your own biases, and giving others the benefit of the doubt will make you a more compassionate person.

You don't have to engage with everyone you meet, but the next time someone smiles and offers you a high-five?

Maybe just take them up on it.


This article was originally published on April 16, 2018.

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