ND students get high marks on financial literacy

By Derek Dahlsad
Contributing Writer

The first class of North Dakota high school graduates required to take personal finance courses ranked above average on the 2011 National Financial Capability Challenge. The results, announced by the U.S. Treasury on April 21 to mark the end of National Financial Literacy Month, showed that 94 out of 399 North Dakotans who were tested ranked in the top 20 percent of all students, and three students earned perfect scores on the test.

Karen Roach, Family and Consumer Science Teacher at Northern Cass School in Hunter, N.D., has given the NFCC to her students for the past three years, and sees the test as a valuable part of her curriculum.

“(My students) understand the terminology that comes with financial things, from credit card information to purchasing certificate of deposit, or stocks and bonds,” Roach said. “All this terminology that goes with finances that most families don’t share with their children growing up, and yet we throw them into that world and expect them to know.”

Northern Cass had more top-20 percent results in Roach’s two classes this year, ten out of 30 students, than in previous years.

The 2009 North Dakota Legislative Assembly changed graduation requirements to include eight specific concepts of personal finance beginning with the class of 2011. In addition to administering the NFCC testing, the U.S. Treasury also provides lesson plans and teaching aids
that teachers can use in their classes, to better instruct students on the importance of financial literacy.

“It’s critical for our young people to develop smart financial skills,” said Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. “I’m encouraged to see the steps that teachers and states are taking to make basic financial education a priority.”

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