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

narayana kocherlakota : on the objectives of monetary policy speech by mr narayana kocherlakota, president of the federal reserve bank of minneapolis, to the economic club of marquette county, marquette, michigan, 22 september 2014. * * * thanks to david fettig, terry fitzgerald and sam schulhofer - wohl for their assistance with these remarks. introduction thank you for that generous introduction, and thank you for the invitation to join you here today. this is my second trip to marquette since becoming president of the federal reserve bank of minneapolis five years ago, and i ’ m glad to be back. i ’ m planning to spend most of my time today talking about the objectives of monetary policy. as you will hear, the fomc has made great progress in formulating, and communicating, the objectives of monetary policy to the public. i will discuss some of that progress and then move on to some ideas about how the committee can make further improvements along these lines. i look forward to your questions, as well – i always learn a lot from q & a sessions. before i start, though, i must remind you that the views i express today are my own and not necessarily those of my federal reserve colleagues. federal reserve system basics let me begin with some basics about the federal reserve system. i like to tell people that the fed is a uniquely american institution. what do i mean by that? well, relative to its counterparts around the world, the u. s. central bank is highly decentralized. the federal reserve bank of minneapolis is one of 12 regional reserve banks that, along with the board of governors in washington, d. c., make up the federal reserve system. our bank represents the ninth of the 12 federal reserve districts and includes montana, the dakotas, minnesota, northwestern wisconsin and the upper peninsula of michigan. eight times per year, the federal open market committee – the fomc – meets to make monetary policy. all 12 presidents of the regional federal reserve banks – including me – and the governors of the federal reserve board contribute to these deliberations. however, the committee itself consists only of the governors, the president of the federal reserve bank of new york and a rotating group of four other presidents. i ’ m one of those four presidents this year. in this way, the structure of the fomc mirrors the federalist structure of our government, because representatives from different regions of the country – the various presidents –