Virginia Financial Literacy Mandates

Welcome. Today we’re going to be reviewing Virginia’s financial literacy standards and mandates. Before I get into the specifics, I want to give you a big picture overview on what we look at when we’re qualifying these financial education programs. Number one, we look that it meets minimum education standards, meaning the minimum education standards required by core subjects taught in high school. Things like qualified educators, evidence-based curriculum, clear outcomes, the basic minimum standards required of other topics. Additionally, the second factor we look at is that students graduate able and capable to make near-term financial decisions. Things like moving out on their own, being able to decide if a college loan makes sense for them, what to do when the first credit card offers come in the mail when they turn 18, very basic things. So everything is framed within that scope. And I want to say, additionally, my reviews are pretty harsh. Typically, Virginia, unfortunately, is no exception. There are some shining points here. I’ll highlight those as well. But this will be critical review. And I always thank those that have blazed the trail and helped to get these standards into schools. Thank you for getting this into schools. I’m appreciative of that. but now it’s time to elevate standards to ensure our children graduate self-sufficient and contributing members of society and that they understand the core components of finance so they don’t make financial mistakes like I did and many of us did especially early on with that said let’s jump into it and this will be first jump into a very positive note here and the positive note is Look at the date, 2005. Virginia’s one of the trailblazers, and they were able to get standards implemented very early, much earlier than most states out there. And 2005 was even before the 2008, 2009 financial crisis, which really started to raise alarms across these states and they started to implement more standards after that financial crisis period. So kudos there, Virginia. Nice work there. Let’s just read what it says. It’s pretty, pretty basic here. It says economic and financial literacy required in middle and high school. The State Board of Education is required to establish objectives for economic education and financial education in schools, which I think is great. It’s always important to establish clear objectives, and I’m glad they addressed that early on. We’ll talk about if the objectives are clear or not later. Hint, they are not, but at least they put it in the bill here. And it was supposed to be implemented starting July 1st, 2006, which is awesome. Let’s skip ahead to the next era, which is 2021. They just updated the standards. Not much changed between 2006 when they implemented these and a bill that occurred about 2011. There’s some minor changes there as well. Not enough to focus on. Let’s jump ahead to the latest, which is 2021. Basically says the same things. If you look at Area B here, it’s talking about Again, develop and improve objectives for economic education and financial literacy. Didn’t they do that in 2006? I don’t get why that’s still included there, but that’s an item of concern. I know they updated this in 2019. We’ll be reviewing those. So maybe they just did not remove that. It also says it shall include… personal living and finances, personal and business money management skills, opening an account in a financial institution. Then it gets into balancing a checkbook, benefits, projections, and long-term financial stability, sustainability, excuse me, and the implications of inheritance, kind of random. Why is that in there? Will it apply? Hopefully it won’t apply to many students early on. The basics of money management. credit card debt, they go on to list just a bunch of random topics. And this is a major problem with most bills out there. They just list random topics. All financial education should be outcome based, meaning what are we trying to get them to do? move out on their own, be self-sufficient, avoid credit card debt, be able to decide on college loans, set up their accounts so they’re working in proper order. Again, we don’t need the politicians telling the administration and the developers of the program what they need to teach. And again, I always see this, they throw in random stuff, implications of an inheritance. Florida copied that same thing in their bill a few years back. So it is kind of random there what they include. And Again, financial education needs to be cohesive and life stage oriented, or we can’t really understand, the students can’t grasp the concepts. If we’re just teaching random topics, they can’t compartmentalize. The way the brain works when we learn, we compartmentalize information so it’s easier to retain and go back and find that information when we need to apply it. So by listing a bunch of random topics, it doesn’t do much there to help. Let’s jump ahead to the economic standards of learning, and it’s called the Economic and Personal Finance Standard of Learning, adopted in October 17th, 2019. And this is what they kept referring to in the bill. And again, the bills didn’t provide much information, right? All they said, you need to teach it, you need to create some outcomes, and they list some random topics. There’s not much in the actual bills. The most, the meat of it is here within the standards that was developed. One pet peeve I have with the standards that were developed, it doesn’t list who the authors are, it doesn’t list who was involved, doesn’t list the coalition that put this together. and and that’s a problem for me i like to know who’s putting these together who has the experience where it comes from and and really why they’re qualified to actually build out the standards and in the framework for learning so that was a miss there but Let’s dive into the actual bill here. And you can see it’s required to have, they combined the economics, which is half a semester, and with the financial education, which is another half a semester. So they’re both standalone courses, which I like, at least how this is constructed. And there’s 18 total pieces of information, total topics and areas that are addressed through here. And nine of those are financial education related. Another nine are economics related. But let’s dive into this a few key things. Some language that is used early on, I like, if you look in the second paragraph, analyze, solve real-world problems. I like that language. That’s encouraging to me. I’m excited to see how this is written. If it’s focused on analyzing, solving problems, that’s great. Those are higher-order thinking skill sets. I’ll get into those later. It mentions critically think and analyze again. And then at the bottom it says understanding and developing the essential knowledge defined by the standards. Those are low order thinking skill sets. So understanding, gaining knowledge, those are very low order thinking skill sets. I’ll get into exactly what that means later, but I want to start to dive into the standards a bit to really frame this concept out a bit so you have a better understanding of that. Again, the first, Nine standards are supposed to be economics oriented, but I saw a few missed opportunities, especially in standard four. this one says the student will demonstrate knowledge of many factors that affect income by now it’s off to a good point that could be an economics principle right but they could just bridge it a little bit more to make it personal finance oriented as well and i think if they brought in examples of how this impacts the individual student as opposed to just these broad economic concepts for instance examine the market value of workers education skills training knowledge credentials great identify the human capital of production costs explaining the relationship between a person’s own human capital and the income potential by performing analysis of expensive financial aid requirements for continuing education and human capital now i think there’s an opportunity to bridge that into some financial education as well by having them research careers they’re interested in figuring out what it costs to develop those skills and seeing how this economic concept that they framed here applies to them in their own personal life. I think it’s a missed opportunity, but I think it could be easily resolved with a highly qualified teacher. Let’s jump to standard 10 here. This is really where the personal finance piece is supposed to begin with standard 10. and it’s about consumer skills good to know it says uh i’ll go to line item b describe common types of contracts and implications of each uh which again common types what does that mean uh describe if i describe what common types of contracts how will that benefit me oh this contract is for a car this contract is to rent a home this contract is for cell phone what does it mean there exactly wouldn’t it be better They dove in and read contracts from the cell phone companies, what it is like, the contracts to rent a home, what it’s like to buy a car and dove into those specific contracts and really had them do a deep analysis of that because most people are making very big decisions when it comes to car, student loans and renting their first place without any knowledge of contracts. So just knowing the different types of contract types doesn’t do much and they don’t really get into greater details there, I think. One thing I did like was examining the importance of maintaining a system for personal finance records. I think it’s good that they develop a system. But the language used, I don’t like this. Examining the importance of maintaining a system. Let’s not just have them examine the importance. Let’s have them examine the importance of then apply what they learned by creating a calendar of things to do, like check their credit, check their bank accounts, you know, developing that habits and system. So there’s a missed opportunity there with that. Let’s dive into standard 11. And this one gets a little more into the meat of it. Before I do get into that too much. Let’s look at some of the language used. I want to really use this as something, I’m going to skip ahead a little bit because the language used in these slides matters. We see examine, describe, demonstrate, examine, examine. We see, what do we see here? Let me go next. We see evaluate, that’s a good one, reconcile, compare, analyze, examine, identify, compare, identify, evaluate, investigate, explore, identify, identify, compare, compare, describe, identify, identify. What does this mean? Well, let me skip ahead here because this is very important. I think that’s why there’s a very big missed opportunity. Most of the terms that they use here, the majority of terms that they use are very low order thinking skill sets. You heard describe, compare might be around here. We haven’t heard a lot of, we heard evaluate a few times, only a couple times. These are high order thinking skill sets, but most are lower order thinking skill sets. What that means, is somebody could pass a pre and post test, right? They’ll have enough short term knowledge to pass a test in the near term, just like most subjects at school. But they haven’t applied and created plans and created the actual things and evaluated on a very deep level. and when you have a class mainly focus on low order thinking skill sets it’s highly susceptible to learning loss which means how long a student will retain information additionally if they’re able to apply it and if they have the confidence to apply that so as i go through these standards please keep an eye on the language use that is very important and the language is critical for teachers because Teachers are relying upon this as a guide. This is supposed to guide teachers as far as what level in the higher order thinking skill sets they have to take students. If it says describe, all they need to do is describe. Again, low order thinking skill set. Describe what a good credit score is, right? Most people could describe 800 is a good credit score, right? But if it’s having them create a plan to build their credit, now we actually have them in a place where they’re applying and it’s a higher order thinking skill set that’s helping them understand it on a much deeper level. Let’s look at area, let’s go to area 12. This had a few higher order thinking skill sets. I think it’s one of the better standards, but again, I think it’s missing some pieces, and it’s also missing a lot of organization with that. The students will demonstrate knowledge. Look at that first piece. Demonstrate knowledge. Again, on area 12. Demonstrate knowledge. That’s a low order thinking skill set. And that’s an overarching standard, which is a major failure. And then they list a bunch of random things out of order. They say, evaluate services related to the cost of banking, differentiate amongst different monetary transactions, prepare all forms necessary for opening and maintaining a checking account, reconcile bank statements, compare costs and benefits of online traditional banking, and examine how financial institutions affect personal financial planning. Now, standards should be organized in a way that reads like a book where we’re getting some basic information and helping them build upon skill sets and knowledge. And the way this is now, everything’s just out of order. You know, why don’t they start with examining how financial institutions affect personal financial planning so they understand the importance of how these, you know, how their financial institution they partner with or have as a a bank or credit union impact them. Then evaluating the services amongst the various banks and also comparing costs, benefits of online and traditional brick and mortar, right? That’s the second level. So first, what’s the overarching thing and how does this opening accounts benefit me? Why do I need to do it? Then how do I find a bank and credit union and evaluate their services, their costs, whether it’s online or brick and mortar? And then prepare forms necessary for opening and maintaining a checking and savings account. I like this standard because they’re actually having them do something. But if we look in the order, after we find the bank and credit union, now we can open the account. Now, sequentially, that makes sense. But I do like that standard because it’s actually having them gather the information needed. I would also have them go through an activity where they actually fill out an application with a bank or credit union, even if they don’t open an account. they can fill out that application to help them get practice. This can tie in what we talked about earlier, understanding contracts, so we can build that into one clear outcome. And then finally, the last two ones here are really about management, reconciling bank statements and differentiating amongst different transactions. What’s a check? How does your savings work? What do I use for what? Right, that’s more management. So sequentially, the way I state it makes a ton more sense. This is all out of order. Additionally, we’re going back to the very top. The students will demonstrate knowledge of banking transactions. I don’t care if they have knowledge of banking transactions. What I care about is they’ve, number one, have evaluated the bank or credit union that will best meet their needs. They know how to compare the fees and read the contracts and agreements. They have all the, they’ll gain confidence because they’ve completed the application and they’ve gathered the information necessary to go have that conversation, maybe even doing some mock games up in front of class. One person plays a banker, one person plays a person opening the account, and then it gets into management of that. So that whole first overarching statement, the student will demonstrate knowledge of banking transactions Who cares? Well, I don’t want them to demonstrate knowledge of banking transactions. I want them to be in position to open accounts with the companies that will best align with their goals and to manage their accounts properly to protect their overall financial process. again huge missed opportunities uh the way that was written was a mess and this is i’m just picking a few here even the one above i don’t have it on here you know they have uh students will demonstrate knowledge of planning for living in leisure expenses again this one isn’t shown but i want to address it and you know they’re talking about comparing the cost of of owning vehicle, leasing a vehicle, cost of, benefit of renting versus purchasing a residence, process of renting a residence, process of purchasing a residence. You know, all that can be handled in a very comprehensive way that’s focused on higher order thinking skill sets. Instead of these describing, describe the process of renting. Who cares if they describe? Let’s have them go through it. Project-based learning is a great tool for everything mentioned in Standard 11. Again, it’s not shown, but project-based learning where we actually have them go through. So if we’re talking about high school sophomores or freshmen, we can have them go through that car buying process in a safe, secure environment. having them research what type of cars, if they want to lease, if they want to buy, what the implications are, what the cost is, being able to fill out, understand what the terms of the loan would be, being able to understand that there’s insurance needs, being able to understand that there’s maintenance costs, registration costs, all these things. I don’t want people to describe the process. It makes no difference. They’ll forget that unless they have a hands-on activity. All educators know that, and I’m always astounded that for financial literacy, it’s just random list of topics that don’t have them working on higher order thinking skill sets. And plus, it’s a fun activity. One of our greatest activities that we do with high school seniors is really planning moving out on their own. They’re looking for places to rent. They’re finding roommates within the classroom. They’re creating rental rooms with the roommates. They’re contacting the cable company, the electric company, the gas company. to find out what that will cost. They’re building out a budget in a safe, secure environment. Again, huge missed opportunity and it doesn’t look very good on them. Line item 13, again, we’re getting into demonstrate knowledge of credit and loan functions. Again, demonstrate knowledge, right? Low order thinking skill sets. Not much, they have, you know, but in here they actually mention higher order thinking skill sets. So as a teacher, I don’t know what they want me to do, right? If the overarching goal is demonstrate knowledge of credit and loan functions, right, that’s an overarching goal, but they have higher order thinking skill sets, analyze, evaluate, it contradicts itself, right? It’s not clear guidelines and it’s problematic there. So nothing more on that one, but again, that overarching thing sets the standard so low. Let’s look at line item 14. The student, again, will demonstrate knowledge of insurance and risk management. demonstrate knowledge, right? Why? And, you know, I think some of it’s good, but they can really focus on the core areas that they’ll need. I think they listed a few of them, but identify different ways to manage risk. I think that’s basic. Evaluate insurance as a risk management strategy. Hey, if we get into real life type scenarios, situations, that’s a higher order thinking skill set. I think there’s great opportunity there. And and highly qualified teachers will do well with that one distinguish among the different types of costs and benefits of insurance coverage identity theft automobile life property health you know i i would narrow that down to the things that they’re going to need right now probably auto and renters insurance health insurance for sure just just to keep it within things that they can apply in the near term that big key with financial education and a huge benefit we have compared to other subjects is they can actually apply what they’ve learned in the near term which is great there moving on to section 15 the student will demonstrate knowledge of income taxes and reporting right and you can read those i don’t want to read all those but it seems very ridiculous what they have them doing They don’t have them searching on how to get a job, completing their resume, practicing their interviews, researching career opportunities. They don’t do any of that. It’s just, oh, why is my pay different than income, gross and net pay, who cares? If you don’t get a job, you don’t need to know gross and net. If you don’t get a job, you don’t need to know about the different tax structures. Now, I’m not saying eliminate this, but first, before you teach all this other stuff that you’ll need when you get a job, every student should graduate with a resume. every student should graduate prepared for interviews every student should graduate knowing what to wear and how to act and how to shake a hand every student should should graduate with opportunity i think schools high schools can present job opportunities you know basic job opportunities whether it be a waiter waitress, valet, whatever that may be, so the kids can start working early and get in the habit of developing a work ethic. All employers love to see background. Doesn’t matter if you’re a waiter, a busboy, whatever the case may be, they love to see real world skills. A lot of people out there go through high school, college, no job, and now they’re in the real world and they never even had an interview, right? So this whole section, why shouldn’t it just be how to get a job and how to find a career? Some career exploration, another thing missing. Most kids will never explore career opportunities or pathways. They’ll go to college and they’ll try to figure it out there. That’s too late and also it’s costing them money to go through that. So again, that demonstrate knowledge of income earning taxes, why? I would much rather spend that entire class week on doing the thing they need to get a job and researching the skills they need to build a career, et cetera. Again, a very big missed opportunity. And it seems so logical to me. I don’t know why they get so fancy with all these other random things. Let’s focus on what we need them to do. They need to start income so they can manage money. Unless they’re earning income, they don’t need to know about what happens to their wages and things like that. So step one, get the job. Step two, figure out where this money goes and so forth. Let’s look at… This next area here, so 16 and 17. The student will demonstrate knowledge of personal financial planning, identify long and short term goals. I would simply change that to not only identify, create personal long and short term goals. To a teacher, that’s a big difference. When it says identify long and short-term goals, as an educator, I could just say, hey, this person wants to buy a home in 20 years. Is that a long or short-term goal? Oh, that’s a long-term goal. You’re right. This person wants to have money to go on a trip next weekend. Is that a long or short-term goal? That’s a short-term goal. Okay, you identified it. You passed that section. That’s the reality of it. If they meant that, that’s ridiculous. I’m sure they didn’t, but whoever wrote these standards, they don’t understand the basics of Bloom’s Taxonomy or Webb’s Depth of Knowledge, which are traditional. Every teacher knows that, right? So I don’t know who wrote these standards. And again, define terminology associated with inheritance and estate planning. Again, random. Develop a personal budget. Great, they’re developing a personal budget, great. That would be a creation, that higher order, and I’d even have them take it to the next step. Hey, analyze income requirements needed to be able to save money on a regular basis. but that’s the only good one there but again the overarching standard was demonstrate knowledge of personal financial planning no the overarching should be encompassing of the real outcomes we want again the big myths why identify short long-term goals simple have them create their own long-term and short-term goals very easy fix and a very big miss on the part of virginia there lastly 18 we get into demonstrate knowledge of post-secondary education i think that’s great but a lot of kids aren’t going to go to college so why should they be taking that i think this this should be a separate class for kids that are going to college instead this needs to be focused on well some of it is Identifying the cost and benefit of post-secondary education, wonderful. Everybody should explore that and see if it makes sense for them, but only after they’ve gone through a career section. If you don’t know what you wanna do, how are you gonna plan for college? That should be the foundation of everything. Now, for the kids that are going to college, completing their FAFSA, all that other stuff, that is important, okay? But overall, across this, I see major, major problems, major misses. Again, I would like to see who actually put these standards together. I don’t think they’ve ever, I don’t want to insult them too much, but it just is poorly, poorly done. And it’s going to confuse teachers. It’s not sequential in nature. They’re missing the most obvious lessons that should be taught in over-complicating some areas and putting some areas out there that they won’t need for many, many, many years. and again the the beauty of personal financial education is addressing the most important and urgent areas of their life let’s get into the overall rating again we rate all states based on a 12-point system here and this is it i’m going to get into this boom So let’s look at the top here. We have delivered in a standalone class and integrated into other subjects. It is a standalone class. It’s not really integrated into other subjects that was mentioned. So they’ll get a, and there’s three levels of rating, green check, red x and the yellow which is mediocre right so they did okay it’s a standalone class which is good but they didn’t talk about integrating lessons into math english and other areas which is an easy thing to do Time and rigor, absolute fail, one semester is not enough. Imagine trying to speak Spanish after one semester, you would not be speaking Spanish very well. Imagine learning anything complex after one semester, you can’t do it. And also the language used was very low rigor, low order thinking skill sets, so that tells me right there, it’s a low rigor class. And not enough time, not enough time either. No mention of ongoing education, which is key. You slam somebody through a one semester course and you don’t do it ever again, what’s gonna happen, right? They’re gonna forget things. They’re not gonna remember things, especially if they’re not applying and creating things there in the classroom that can serve them in the future. They did have them create a personal budget, Good, a nice win there. But across the board, they missed out some very key things. And I think that moving out on their own and planning for those things is really critical. And even things, what happens when you get inundated with the initial credit card offers when you turn 18? That gets a lot of people in trouble and amiss. Relevant lesson plans that prepare students for near-term life events, absolutely not. They could, but it’s so far, it’s so convoluted, so when I was reading those for the first time, I’m trying to map this out, what that would look like for me as an educator in front of class, and it would take me a long time and a lot of effort to actually map that out, which is a problem, and we’ll talk about that here in the next section. Adopt proven curriculum that encourages higher order thinking skill sets, absolutely not. very few mentions of higher order thinking skill sets. In fact, the majority of the overarching standards, the big standard at the top before the bullet points, those were low order gain knowledge, low order thinking skill sets. So the curriculum, it won’t match. So you need to have a quality curriculum that’s really pushing that boundary of what they’re requiring through that. Customized lesson plans based on student need, no mention there. And why that’s so important, it’s very socioeconomic. So just to share a little bit about my story, when I started, I lived in Huntington Beach on one side of Warner Avenue was Santa Ana, Long Beach, very low socioeconomic income areas. And I found that students had a lot of knowledge on budgeting, a lot of knowledge on delayed gratification, but little hope for the future. On the other side of Warner Avenue was Orange County School District. A lot of hope for the future, a ton of hope. but they had no knowledge of delayed gratification or budgeting. That’s just one example. So really, it’s important that curriculum and lesson plans are modified to meet the socioeconomic status and the biggest challenges of those students. That was a big miss there. Courses led by highly qualified educators, nope, there was no mention of required teacher training, no mention of any of those standards, so that’s a problem, and that’s key. A lot of the teachers out there are economic teachers, which is a completely different subject than financial education. Financial education is very personal, behavior, habit-oriented. And if you don’t have a qualified educator that’s specifically trained on personal finance to consider behavioral finance issues, the psychology, and also the core outcomes that are needed to help people avoid the most common challenges they face when they’re young and making those initial decisions, you’re gonna have a big miss, so a big fail there. And teachers are the most important component of a student’s learning outcomes. The teacher, it doesn’t matter the curriculum so much, the teacher is the core ingredient that has the biggest impact on student outcomes. Next, program delivered and managed by experienced leaders. Just by reading the standards, I’m going to say absolutely no. I don’t know who they consulted or anything. I don’t want to rag on anybody too much. I know this person probably has a million things on their plate, but it didn’t even come close to aligning with research-based education principles, very unorganized, low-order thinking skill sets, my guess is. They’ve never taught personal finance. I’ve only come across two states where the people leading the program, meaning the directors, have actually had experience, and this is out of 19 states I’ve reviewed so far, have actually had experience teaching personal finance. It’s just insane to me. If you have a math director, they’re going to be your head of the department. The math person probably was a teacher for 20 to 30 years in math. If you have the science department director, They probably have 20, 30 years teaching science, but for some reason, financial literacy, oh, you don’t need that experience. Next, learn outcome, focus, and assessed. Now, they do have a third-party measurement tool, which I like. It’s from Wise. A gentleman, David Anderson, runs that. Great guy, great, great test. So I think they did well there by outsourcing that to a qualified team, a qualified organization. And if financial literacy was just measured by content knowledge measures, I would give them a green check there. But unfortunately, it’s measured by also behaviors, people’s confidence in making decisions, people’s ability to break through habits, what’s called stage of change, so their willingness to adopt new behaviors. It’s also measured by actual outcomes, right? So tracking students years after they graduate. So for the content knowledge portion, it’s handled by a highly qualified organization. Again, that’s a great thing there. Their major failure, not the organization, the state of Virginia, is they’re not including behavior sentiment measures, actual outcomes, if they’re establishing systems, all these things that you can measure from personal finance topics. Funding, I’m going to give them a circle here. Nothing was really mentioned, but from my reading and understanding, they’re pulling from the economics department’s budget, social sciences. So I give a green check to those organizations that have an independent account for financial literacy education. So it’s its own budget. If not, there’s always fighting. And economics departments have been around for years. They’re very strong as far as their lobbyists and as far as their ability to, you know, they’ve been around for years. They’re well entrenched into academia. They have friends, relationships. So it’s always a fight when financial education is trying to pull some of that budget. For that reason, I give them a yellow circle. Uh, elementary school lessons, even though we only talked about twice, it’s in middle school. I’ll give them a yellow circle there. There was a couple of places within the bill and other things that I’ve read online. where they’re encouraging that. There is a requirement in middle school, which is great. Little in elementary school. It’s not enough and it’s not organized in an efficient manner. And it’s really easy to integrate financial education into elementary school because it’s focused on literacy and numeracy. We can easily integrate financial education into those components. Once it gets to high school, it needs to be focused on helping them get to those life events and prepare for those things coming up. Encourage parental involvement. a big red X there. So what do we have here? We have no green checks and four mediocres. They’re doing better than most states. And you might think, oh, that’s really bad. They’re doing better than most states, which is very, very sad. So, again, I am harsh on these, but the reason I’m harsh is because it will directly impact our kids, their self-worth, their emotional state, their financial well-being, their relationships, their overall life. Without financial education, and if people are going through struggles, they can be there for years. Oftentimes, it goes through their whole life from early financial mistakes. I see it all the time. I’ve talked to people. in horrible, horrible financial situations, and we know the fix. And there’s a lot of classes that could be eliminated to make room for the most important subject. Financial literacy should be taught all the way through elementary school, integrated in the subjects. Four years of high school should be dedicated to that. There’s many topics that do not benefit even close to 100% of students like financial literacy does. Advanced math benefits less than 10%. Sciences. biology, chemistry, less than 5%. Your literature classes that kids are mandated to take, less than 2%. Your foreign language, unless you live in a bilingual household or you’re speaking down on a regular basis, two years are not gonna benefit you. A lot of classes can be eliminated and instead they choose that that benefits less than 90 percent of students only 10 percent of students benefit from those classes where financial literacy benefits 100 of students it’s time for virginia to raise up your standards you are an early adopter let’s lead in this next round of raising standards so we’re actually seeing outcomes right now it’s just a smoke and mirror show we’re putting a lipstick on a pig One semester will do very little, especially with the standards written as they are. It will do very little to actually help students. It doesn’t even come anywhere close to meeting minimum education standards, and our kids deserve better. Our kids should graduate prepared to make near-term financial decisions. I want them living a happy, healthy, successful life, giving back, self-sufficient, contributing members of society, and I hope Virginia can get behind that.