Financial Education in Washington State

by Tracy Godat, Executive Director, FEPPP

Did you know money habits, whether we will be a saver or spender, are set by the age of seven? You can change them but it becomes more difficult each year after that.

According to the Washington State Attorney General, more than 800,000 Washington State borrowers owe more than $24B in student loan debt. Many young adults in Washington State look to fill the gap between low wages, high living expenses, and student loan debt with credit cards- leaving them with even more debt. Statistics show that many of these young adults will end up filing for bankruptcy, and in 2018, over 10,000 Washington State residents filed for bankruptcy. We must do better to educate our youth in financial literacy.

The Washington State Legislature created the Financial Education Public-Private Partnership (FEPPP) to bring together both public and private stakeholders. The goal of the FEPPP is to advocate for and improve financial education in Washington State schools and communities. FEPPP has 16 appointed members including legislators, educators, state agency representatives, and representatives from the private sector.

One of the main tasks of FEPPP is to train Washington State teachers on how to provide financial education in classrooms across the state. Since Financial Education is not a graduation requirement it is important to support teachers in combing financial education with existing curriculum such as mathematics, ELA, social studies, and many CTE courses. To support that goal FEPPP has established a presenter bureau of guest speakers to match public partners, such as wealth managers, insurance providers, and bankers, with classroom teachers.

In 2018, the State Board of Education collected information from 251 school districts relating to financial education via the Basic Education Compliance Data survey.

When asked if their district offers financial education:

• 65% of districts gave no response.
• 11% said financial education is required for credit.
• 18% said financial education is embedded in another course.
• 2% responded that financial education is required as a not-for-credit course.

FEPPP has been offering financial education teacher trainings since 2009. The one or two day workshops are free for Washington State teachers and take place all around the state. FEPPP has provided training and materials to more than 1,130 teachers with an estimated impact to more than 97,500 students. A recent survey of the FEPPP trained teachers shows that more than 85% continue to use the materials received at FEPPP trainings.

With increased support from our private partners, we are able to continue training teachers around the state. By increasing teacher trainings, we hope to see the number of districts offering financial education increase.

For more information from FEPPP and a few of our partners, please visit:

• http://feppp.org/resources.htm
• https://dfi.wa.gov/financial-education
• https://www.tre.wa.gov/personal-finance/

For more information about FEPPP, please contact Tracy Godat at tracy.godat@k12.wa.us or 360–725–6260