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NFI > Financial Literacy > Standards

Standards 

Financial literacy starts in the classroom
Indiana’s youth, like their peers across the nation, are in dire need of financial literacy. Statistics expose the appalling reality: our young adults are entering the workforce without the critical financial know-how they will need as adults.

NFI has taken a leadership role in creating a statewide financial literacy curriculum for K-12 students.

 

A statewide rally for financial literacy standards
Led by NFI, a grass-roots team of stakeholders set out to assess the problem and identify educational standards for financial literacy in the state of Indiana. Once standards were identified, the group set out to accomplish three critical tasks to begin developing financial literacy competency guidelines:

  1. To identify and rank personal financial literacy skills essential for all high school graduates.
  2. To define the gaps between the newly identified required skill set and current curriculum standards of high school curricula (within the state of Indiana) that focus on personal financial competencies.
  3. To establish a network of people with a shared passion to improve personal financial literacy in the state of Indiana and the nation.

Stakeholders in our state’s level of literacy
NFI knows the importance of involving and working with community partners and organizations to arrive at its goal of statewide financial literacy. The individuals collaborating on these statewide standards represent stakeholder groups from around the state.

High school educators of adjacent areas of study:

  • Business
  • Economics
  • Family and Consumer Science

University academicians from Ball State University, Indiana State University, and University of Southern Indiana representing finance and education-related departments:

  • Accounting
  • Business Education
  • Curriculum and Instructions
  • Economics
  • Family and Consumer Science
  • Insurance and risk management
  • Indiana Department of Education
  • Indiana's business community
  • Governmental and non-profit organizations
  • Undergraduate and graduate students from the ISU's School of Business, School of Education, and the College of Arts and Sciences

 

The need for financial literacy standards in Indiana
Today the State of Indiana does not require Financial Literacy as an area of study, so the educators who focus on financial literacy do so without the guidelines and resources that would be possible with an adopted set of standards. Indiana's Academic Standards expose students to personal finance topics in the areas of Business Education, Family & Consumer Sciences, Mathematics and Economics, leaving financial literacy as an option for educators.