policymakers and the public. in my view, the bulk of the responsibility for clear communication falls on policymakers themselves. with this in mind, i have strongly supported federal reserve system initiatives toward greater transparency about our decisions and the logic behind them. in my speeches, articles and video statements on our website – as well as via the bank ’ s twitter and youtube channels, its facebook page and its smartphone delivery system – i try to clearly outline my own thinking about policy. now, although policymakers have the primary responsibility for effectively communicating their decisions, the task becomes easier when the general public has a basic grasp of economic and financial principles. in my frequent dialogues with audiences in the ninth federal reserve district, i am often impressed by their interest in and understanding of policy issues. their perceptiveness bolsters my belief in the importance and possibility of clear communication about policy. everyone benefits from a better public understanding of basic economic concepts. it helps policymakers in their efforts to successfully convey policy decisions, and it allows voters to more effectively hold policymakers accountable. these benefits should not be taken for granted, however. they are the result of an effective system of general education that relies on elementary, secondary and college teachers to provide training in economics, personal finance and related social sciences. with that in bis central bankers ’ speeches mind, i want to express my sincere appreciation not only to the instructors who teach these concepts, but especially, in the context of mcee ’ s 50th anniversary, to those who support and prepare them to teach. more broad than deep the objective of general economic and personal finance education is more broad than deep. in particular, it need not aim at preparing students to be professional economists, even though some of them will follow that path. i know this from experience. despite having little exposure to economics instruction until i was a college undergraduate, i was not disadvantaged in my subsequent pursuit of an economics ph. d. it remains the case that many successful professional economists and current economics graduate students had little formal training in economics before college or, in some cases, graduate school. in other words, the primary aim of k - 12 education in economics and finance is to prepare students to be thoughtful individuals, good citizens and intelligent workers, but not necessarily economists. these aims can be largely met by successfully conveying a small set of basic economic and finance concepts. we economists are notorious for our arguments and disagreements, of course, but the fact is we generally agree on the basic concepts that underlie economic

students should be required to take a financial literacy course or pass a literacy test for high school graduation, ” and about 30 percent had actually taught financial literacy concepts ( usually integrated into a course on another or broader topic ). nonetheless, the respondents reported a large gap in knowledge about how to teach personal finance. only 3 percent of k - 12 teachers had taken a college course that covered how to teach personal finance, and just 7 percent to 11 percent felt well qualified in areas such as integrating financial literacy concepts into their disciplines, developing examples to explain financial literacy concepts and assessing students ’ financial literacy understanding. these findings corroborate the anecdotes of panic that lead many new teachers of economics and personal finance to seek out the mcee and its affiliates. way, wendy l., and karen c. holden. 2009. “ teachers ’ background and capacity to teach personal finance : results of a national study. ” journal of financial counseling and planning 20 ( 2 ). bis central bankers ’ speeches proficient students research also supports the anecdotes of student proficiency achieved through teacher training on economics and personal finance pedagogy. two scholars associated with the mcee ’ s center at st. cloud state university, rich macdonald and ken rebeck, teamed with the university of nebraska ’ s william walstad to assess how much a well - prepared teacher using a well - designed curriculum could enhance students ’ acquisition of personal finance knowledge. 4 they worked with 15 teachers in four states who were trained to use the council for economic education ’ s financing your future curriculum. after being trained, these teachers used the curriculum to instruct hundreds of students. those students and a control group of similar students who received no instruction were tested both before and after the instruction, and the results were clear. before instruction began, both groups of students correctly answered just under 50 percent of the test questions. afterward, performance was unchanged for the control group, but rose to almost 69 percent correct for the students receiving instruction, a statistically significant improvement. in short, well - trained teachers using sound curricula make a difference. that logic lies behind the federal reserve bank of minneapolis ’ long partnership with the mcee, the montana council on economic education and other economic and personal finance education organizations. our senior officers and economists have worked with the mcee and others since at least the 1960s. we value the opportunities the mcee provides for talking with k - 12 educators about macroeconomics, monetary policy, financial supervision and the