Kentucky

Kentucky Bar Foundation and Fayette County Bar Foundation working with Fayette County schools giving financial education classes for for high school students.  In light of the financial upheavals taking place now, this class is not only timely but crucial.  However, note that it has been going on for several years already.  Kudos to all.

Bankruptcy rates have steadily increased as credit card indebtedness mushroomed, explained Versailles attorney Todd Horstmeyer. He is working with Fayette Co. schools, the Fayette Co. Bar Foundation and the Kentucky Bar Foundation to expand to all Fayette County high schools' curriculum developed by Rochester, New York bankruptcy judge John Ninfo. "He saw a tremendous increase in young adults filing bankruptcy, primarily over credit card problems and decided that one of the things that was needed is an earlier education with high school students regarding credit, credit abuse, student loans."

Here is the post.

October 16, 2008
Teaching Moment
Fayette schools welcome financial literacy program in midst of crisis
by Tom Martin   

The financial crisis of 2008 is providing the ultimate teaching moment for individuals and businesses alike. While much of the Wall Street meltdown can be traced to irresponsible behavior and even incompetence at the highest, most exquisitely salaried levels on Wall Street ?? as well as to deregulatory zeal on Capitol Hill ?? widespread financial illiteracy and resulting consumer gullibility also played important roles. The good news is that it's now hard to find anyone who doesn't agree that far more could and should be done to educate and prepare future generations to successfully manage their own finances and to have the savvy to make informed decisions when choosing policy-makers at the voting booth.

And more is being done.

Fayette County Schools Superintendent Stu Silberman has welcomed an offer by Junior Achievement to teach Financial Literacy to middle and high school students. "We're very excited about the partnership," he said. "It's a natural fit for us. JA is already coming into our schools with volunteers, so this is an extension of that.

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Taught by Junior Achievement volunteers drawn from the Central Kentucky business community, the new six-week course will first reach 2,600 seventh graders in Fayette County Schools. "They'll learn about the stock market. In the first week they'll actually pick some stocks and through that next six weeks they'll follow where those stocks go. They'll do some budgeting exercises, talk about how credit works, loans ?? good type loans, bad type loans ?? checkbooks, credit cards, debit cards, all those kinds of things," Hudgins said.

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Implementing financial literacy education was a recommendation of Silberman's "2020 Vision" initiative of 2005. Given recent events, that now seems almost prescient. "The relevance in the classroom has just increased significantly for our kids to be able to see what's going on across the country and that we're coming in to help them deal with it before it gets to that stage for them," Silberman said. "A lot of what we're dealing with today is about people being over-extended and we hope that one of the things that our kids come out of this with is that we have to live within our means."

In a society with a financial system as complex as that of the United States, studies portray a paradox in which more than half of American adults can't handle even the basics of finance. "In a 2003 survey," states the final report of the 2020 Vision Financial Literacy work group, "the median reported value of all household retirement savings was only $40,000, and 25% of those surveyed had no retirement account at all. Yet, oddly, more than one-half of the respondents indicated they are confident they will have saved enough for retirement. This indicates a clear lack of understanding of their retirement needs and financial literacy in general."

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Bankruptcy rates have steadily increased as credit card indebtedness mushroomed, explained Versailles attorney Todd Horstmeyer. He is working with Fayette Co. schools, the Fayette Co. Bar Foundation and the Kentucky Bar Foundation to expand to all Fayette County high schools' curriculum developed by Rochester, New York bankruptcy judge John Ninfo. "He saw a tremendous increase in young adults filing bankruptcy, primarily over credit card problems and decided that one of the things that was needed is an earlier education with high school students regarding credit, credit abuse, student loans."

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