Through a unique partnership, more than 1,500 elementary schoolchildren in Delaware are learning the fundamentals of money and savings, material that is tested on the state assessment test. My office, along with the University of Delaware Center for Entrepreneurship and Economic Education, Delaware State Chamber of Commerce and many of Delaware's leading banks, have joined with school districts in all three counties to offer this program. The need is clear. According to the JumpStart Coalition, high school graduates today know less about money than their peers did three years ago - and that wasn't much to begin with.
Most graduates lack basic skills in managing personal finances, according to surveys.
The stakes of financial illiteracy are high. Some observers even comment that the nation's high national debt developed as a result of financial illiteracy among policymakers. In Delaware, we have modeled our interactive financial education on the work of Ronni Cohen, Delaware's 1999 Teacher of the Year. Her efforts at Claymont Elementary to teach financial literacy to young students have been recognized across the country. Those elementary and middle school teachers committed to the Bank on It program incorporate the appropriate curriculum in their classes.