There are three essential ingredients for effective economic education in the schools. First, teachers must be knowledgeable about the subject and be able to help students learn how to use basic economic concepts to analyze personal and social issues. Second, good curriculum guides and instructional materials are needed that present economic content at an appropriate level for the student to understand. Third, economics must have a central place in the school curriculum similar to math, science, history and language arts so that substantial classroom time is devoted to economics instruction. Over the past 40 years there has been a significant improvement in each area.
Teachers now have more economic knowledge because they are taking more economics courses.
Instruction in economics in the classroom is more analytical and less descriptive because of the development of curriculum guides and national standards. There are now many high quality textbooks and supplementary materials for instruction. More high school graduates are completing an economics course and more instructional time is devoted to economics throughout the school curriculum. Although there has been progress, much more needs to be accomplished in the coming decades if we are to produce an economically literate population. A major problem in this nation is that too few students are receiving an economic education before they graduate from high school.