By M.D. Kittle | Wisconsin Reporter
MADISON — Wisconsin has some pretty smart kids. Smarter than many of their adult fellow citizens.
After a woeful generation or so of plummeting U.S. financial literacy rates, it’s nice to know that more and more students in Wisconsin are learning the basics of personal finance.
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According to a comprehensive survey by the state Department of Financial Institutions, 44 percent of Wisconsin school districts require a course in personal financial literacy as a prerequisite to high school graduation. And, the survey says, 27 percent of the districts that do not offer such required courses plan to do so in the near future.
“The need to be financially literate has never been more important,” Gov. Scott Walker said this week in a statement. “While more than 40 percent of our school districts are requiring their students to take a PFL course in order to graduate, there is more we can do to teach all Wisconsin young people this important life skill. I encourage educators across the state to do their part to continue to integrate personal financial literacy instruction into our schools.”
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I couldn’t agree more.
But the growing number of personal finance courses got me thinking: There’s another segment of the population that is in dire need of financial education, a group that, based on everything I have witnessed during the past several years, appears to be struck imbecilic by financial illiteracy.
I refer, of course, to Congress.
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