District 228 Schools recognized by NGPF as Gold Standard Schools

All four of Bremen High School District 228’s high schools have been recognized by Next Gen Personal Finance (NGPF) as a Gold Standard School for Financial Literacy Education. These schools include Bremen High School, Tinley Park High School, Hillcrest High School, and Oak Forest High School.

NGPF is a leading non-profit provider of financial education curriculum and teacher professional development. According to NGPF, fewer than 1 in 5 students nationwide (18.3%) receive access to a comprehensive financial education in high school. Because of this, the organization chose District 228’s schools to be recognized as Gold Standard Schools for specifically requiring all of its students to take at least one semester of personal finance before graduation.

Outside of the five states (Alabama, Missouri, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia) that currently require their high school students to take a personal finance class of at least one semester, the responsibility falls on individual schools and school districts to ensure all students take this common-sense course. Outside these five mandate states, fewer than 1 in 10 high school students (9.3%) are required to take at least one semester of personal finance to graduate. This makes District 228’s Gold Standard achievement all the more impressive.

“Behind each of these trail-blazing schools is a story,” said Tim Ranzetta, NGPF’s co-founder and CEO, “a story of a teacher, parent, grandparent, student, administrator, local representative or businessperson who asked an important question: Why don’t we teach ALL students about the real-world financial decisions they’ll be making every day for the rest of their lives?”

See NGPF’s full Progress Report for 2019-2020 recognizing District 228's schools here. 1,247 schools received this achievement nationwide with only 59 of those schools being from Illinois.