New Vt. Program to Study Effectiveness of Financial Literacy Training in High Schools

On hand to discuss the new pilot program will be:

• Vt. Gov. Peter Shumlin;

• Ted Beck, President & CEO of the National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE);

• Steve Kimbell , Commissioner of Vt.’s Dept. of Banking, Insurance, Securities & Health Care Administration (BISHCA);

• Beth Pearce, Vt. State Treasurer;

• Armando Vilaseca, Vt. Commissioner of Education;

• David F. Finney, Champlain College President;

• John Pelletier, Champlain College’s Director of the Center for Financial Literacy.

The pilot program is the result of a partnership between state government entities, non-profit corporations, financial institutions and higher education. With the information, the Champlain CFL hope to prove that a personal finance class taught by a highly trained teacher has a material positive impact on the knowledge and behaviors of the high school students who receive this instruction. We hope that this pilot will show our state and our nation that it is important to train our teachers on personal finance topics and even more important have students graduate high school that are financially savvy.

Funds for the project come from a variety of sources including:

BISHCA; NEFE; National Life Group; Merchants Bank; Champlain Investment Partners, LLC; Northfield Savings Bank; Vermont Mutual Insurance Group, and other private donors.

National Level of Interest in this Topic

This project has received the support of two prominent non-profit organizations -- the National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE) and the Jump$tart Coalition -- leaders in national efforts to bring financial literacy curriculum to students in America’s classrooms. Although this is a Vermont-based pilot program, the ultimate goal is to create a final written report that will have national implications. NEFE will be providing its expertise on this project with regard to the creation of student assessment tools on the topic of personal finance and will help develop the final report from this project.

The Jump$tart Coalition has provided its innovative Teacher Training Alliance Curriculum to the Center to use in the training of the educators who participate in this pilot. This curriculum was designed by a national steering committee consisting of the Jump$tart Coalition, NEFE, Council of Economic Education, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Family Economics and Financial Education, Junior Achievement, U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Champlain’s Center for Financial Literacy was the third national test site for this curriculum.

Learn more about the Center for Financial Literacy: http://www.champlain.edu/center-for-financial-literacy-x13547.html

For more Information:

Stephen Mease, Director of News and Public Information

Champlain College, Burlington, Vt.

(802) 865-6432 or (802) 578-8029 (cell)

smease@champlain.edu