Today’s Guest Blog was written by one of our FaceBook Friends, Mike Wrong.  If you would like to have your views on education published on the Education Connection blog, please contact us!  We are here and we are listening.

From a little one room red school house to the large educational institutions of today, as the population grew, so to, did the levels in education.  When America was young, everyone was an immigrant – different people, from different cultures coming to America, to find freedom and a chance for a new beginning. In most cases the immigrants were poor and of uneducated stock. The more affluent folks took advantage of this, and hired the less educated at lower wages. This can be seen repeating itself today, with the current immigration in America. As people got settled in this country, they found they wanted more and could have it, if they were better educated.

Thus the education system began to grow; we created programs and curriculums. Every one remembers the three R’s: reading, rithmatic, riting. These were the basic courses in our educational system. As the country grew, so too did the god-given talent of the people. Ingenuity and innovation became science. People were free to create new and innovative tools, machines, and products of all types.

As the country grew, so too did the wallets of the more educated. They decided to make education mandatory, perhaps to continue the wonderful growth in productivity and innovation in America. And, of course, to continue the increase in profits.

Let me note, that the majority of people at this time, were not being educated at all in finance or banking practices. That was all kept in the family circle of the wealthy folk. The banking system went on and off the gold standard, and finally stayed on the inflationary system we have today. In 1938 three quarters of all soldiers had not even completed high school. This kept millions of people uneducated and forced them after their military service into basic uneducated labor.

Today we have colleges, universities and schools of all kinds for higher education. But still with the demand for financial knowledge to succeed in this country, we never seemed to make financial education part of our basic educational skills in grades kindergarten through 12th.

According to the Dept. of Labor, the statistics for 2009 were thus: forty percent of high school graduates joined the labor force and sixty percent went on to college. Now going by older stats to see the next four years, of those sixty percent, twenty percent fell back into the labor force and of the forty percent who graduated from a four year college, less than fifteen percent had received a solid financial education.

So we have in America today – and it has been this way for a very long time – eighty-five percent of high school graduates not receiving a financial education. They are left to flounder and learn from the school of hard knocks. Parents can only try and teach what they have learned. Look back at the stats. We need to update our K-12 curriculum with a financial literacy program in order for our education system to be current with today’s needs. There is a major imbalance. Think of where you could be today if you had received a financial education.

A Wall Street executive commented on a post I made on the internet. “If teachers were financially literate, they would not want to teach,” he said. I replied and told him, “If people had financial security, they would be free to follow their heart’s vocations.” Think of how the crime rates, the strain on social programs, the marital stress that in turn destroys our children could be reduced with even just four years of financial education in our high schools. Even a drop out would have better tools than they have now.

As the father of six children, I have met so many of our youth all heading the way of their parents. Very few are able to break the mold. Of the 300 million people in our country, 296 million make less than $250,000 annually. And 250 million make less than $100,000 a year. So where is the American dream? It is kept in the family circles of the wealthy. Financial education in our schools would lift every child and in turn every person.

In closing, let me say, “I believe in our teachers, our educational system, and our students.” Just look how far America has come in the past one hundred years. It is now time to look forward at the next one hundred. Imagine the number of youths who would go on to college because they knew that they could afford to do it. During their four year financial training, they would all learn to apply for grants and scholarships, along with learning about interest rates, payments, etc. Our children deserve to be lifted to the next level in civilization. When our kids have kids, hopefully they will not have to work 24/7 to survive and I believe you will see the biggest rise in parental/school involvement in our history.