Interactive Monday: Maternity Leave Policies
Hat tip to Jessica for pointing out this interactive that compares company maternity leave policies in a visual way:
It took me a minute to orient myself to this bubble chart. This chart represents the maternity leave policies of over 1,800 U.S. companies with the size of the bubble representing the number of weeks of paid maternity leave provided. The 0's on the perimeter of the circle are all the organizations with 0 paid time maternity leave policies. As your scroll down the page, you...
NGPF Podcast: Tim Talks to Colorado Changemakers Debbie Pierce and Alyssa Wooten
States legislators and education leaders make decisions to emphasize financial education but then what? Anyone experienced in education or business, for that matter, knows that success requires keen attention to detail when it comes to implementation of a new program. Debbie Pierce from Economic Literacy Colorado and Alyssa Wooten from the Colorado Dept. of Education have teamed up to both increase access and improve the personal finance instruction taught in Colorado schools. Listen as they...
Best of 2018...Most Engaging Blog Posts
By Tim Ranzetta
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Jan 01, 2019
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Personal Finance, Credit Cards, Cryptocurrencies, Behavioral Finance, Policy, Paying for College
Happy New Year! Continuing the "Best of 2018" theme, I wanted to share with you the blog posts that engaged readers the most in 2018. To measure engagement I focused on two factors. I looked for pages that attracted hundreds of visitors and had the highest average time spent per page. Time spent on the page was a good indication that educators/students read the blog post in its entirety and engaged in the mini-activity described in it. For those new to NGPF, several of the posts below are...
NGPF Podcast: Tim Talks to Aaron Standish About Implementing Financial Education In Palm Beach County School District
In 2013, Florida passed a state law which required embedding personal finance into the Economics course. That was about the same time that Palm Beach County School District received a grant to implement a K-12 strategy for financial education. They plucked Aaron Standish from the classroom to lead this important effort. Aaron shares his insights on the keys to a successful implementation, how he supports and develops district educators and the criteria he uses to evaluate curriculum. In...
NGPF Podcast: Tim Talks to Brookings Institution's Matt Kasman About the State of Financial Education
We have seen some recent progress in states increasing access to financial education. In some cases, we see legislation at the state level (top-down) and in other situations, it is grassroots efforts at the school or district level (bottom-up). Tim talks to the Brookings Institution's Matt Kasman, who is out with a new research report that makes an important contribution to the existing literature on state-level efforts to improve financial education. Matt shares the results of his study as...
What I Learned Reading the State Auditor's Report About Financial Education in Utah
As most folks interested in financial education are aware, Utah generally scores high in any state-by-state comparisons of the commitment to financial education earning an A+ from Champlain College and identified as one of only five states with a standalone personal finance course requirement in the NGPF Access To Financial Education study. So, I was excited when the publicly available Utah State Auditor's report crossed my desk (or more accurately appeared in my inbox). I immediately...
FinCap Friday: The Credit Deep Freeze
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Sep 13, 2018
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FinCap Fridays, Credit Reports, Current Events, Credit Scores, Policy
This week's FinCap Friday focuses on the one year anniversary of the great Equifax hack (not so great if you were one of its victims) and a new regulation to help protect the minors in your class:
New to NGPF's FinCap Friday? It's a fun way to engage your students with current events and includes:
A five question Kahoot!
A 90 second video providing details about the current event and explaining why it matters to students
A discussion prompt
Activity ideas to extend the learning...
Schools in the News: State policies, teacher PD and Wise Students
TN Treasurer visits Elizabethton to launch financial literacy program (Elizabethton Star):
Through the program, each classroom sets up their own mini-economy where the children take on different roles such as merchants, bankers, and other professions to learn about earning and spending money. Students will also learn about evaluating expenses from a needs versus wants perspective, as well as financial topics such as loans, interest, and inflation. In the classrooms where the program has...
The "States" of Financial Capability
Last December, the Center for Financial Literacy at Champlain College issued a report card on U.S. states and their personal finance education offerings in high schools. At that point, only Alabama, Missouri, Tennessee, Virginia and Utah received “A’s,” signifying that they require 60+ hours of personal financial instruction for graduation. Utah got an “A+” because they also require students to pass a state test on the subject.
However, there has been progress...
Digging Deeper: Money and Gender Part I – the Pay Gap
Apr 30, 2018
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Research, Career, Current Events, Employment, Personal Finance, Policy
Two events in April brought the issue of gender pay gap into the headlines this past month. The first was the April 4 deadline for all companies in the United Kingdom to report on pay by gender in their companies. (Apparently, it is against the law to pay different rates/salaries by gender, but the government agency responsible for enforcing this is woefully short of staff and funding.) For those reporting by the deadline, 80% in fact pay men more. This has brought the issue...
What's the Catch?: The Case of Golden Valley Loan Company
If they won't regulate, we better educate.
Listening to Planet Money podcast (20 minutes) last week about an online lender, Golden Valley Loan, Inc. It was being sued by CFPB for "unfair, deceptive and abusive business practices." Under new CFPB leadership, the lawsuit has been dropped.
So, I went to Golden Valley's website to read the fine print of their short-term, high interest loans to see if I could find the "gotchas."
What a beautiful website...
Here's how they...
Schools in the News (late February)
By Tim Ranzetta
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Mar 01, 2018
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Schools In News, Professional Development, Policy, Personal Finance
Here's what's happening with personal finance across the country:
Will the state of Florida require a personal finance course? (Tampa Bay Online):
Hukill, a Port Orange Republican, has been pushing to get this information into teens’ hands for five years. Her bill would remove the financial literacy material currently in the state’s basic economics course, and create a separate half-credit course that students would have to pass in order to graduate.
NGPF Fellow, Jill Wilson,...
What I'm Reading This Weekend (2/10-2/11)
By Beth Tallman
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Feb 09, 2018
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Investing, Policy, Cryptocurrencies, Student Loans, Podcasts, Current Events
What happened to the 15 months of placid, upward sloping trend lines for all major stock indices that we had grown so accustomed to? Find out what changed with the markets and more in Beth's most excellent curated reads below.
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The Market (are we talking about anything else this week?)
Did anyone else get whiplash (or perhaps motion sickness) from the roller coaster ride the stock market took this week? Here are several articles that help put is in...
Let's Get Philosophical: What's the Purpose of Companies?
By Tim Ranzetta
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Jan 21, 2018
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Current Events, Article, Audio Resource, Ethics, Policy, Teaching Strategies
Make a profit OR serve other constituencies, like customers, employees and communities. The "maximize shareholder value" mantra (a.k.a. the stock price is all that matters) for public companies has been in vogue for the past several decades. However, if pronouncements from a top investor is any indication, there may be a shift afoot. Business teachers might enjoy taking this current event into the classroom and using it to spur a debate.
Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, an asset manager with over...
Question of the Day: How many monthly withdrawals can you make (without penalty) from a savings or money market account?
By Tim Ranzetta
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Nov 09, 2017
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Question of the Day, Savings, Checking Accounts, Debit Cards, Policy
Answer: 6
Hat tip to Jessica and her PLC group, Diane Mondoro, Steve Penley, Vicky Livesay, and Kayla Bousum for generating this question. (Sign up for the next round of our PLCs here)
On to the details:
From NerdWallet:
Regulation D, also known as Reg D, is a Federal Reserve Board rule that puts a limit of six transactions per month on certain transfers and withdrawals from your savings or money market account. If you go over the limit, the bank or credit union can charge you a fee, close...
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