(Tonight we welcome our newest guest author, Lois Gibbons! Lois has an incredible background in financial literacy. She is the President and founder of Harmony Financial Network, the recent Director of the Financial Literacy Program for the Accounting Aid Society, as well as a community leader and advocate for personal finance and literacy. Oh yeah, and a whole lot more. Not to mention, she's nearly family. You can look forward to hearing from Lois on a regular basis. We're thrilled to have her with us. Please help us give her a warm welcome! - promoted by Christine)
 How honored I am to communicate what is happening in the personal finance world here in Michigan. Thanks for asking me. I will work hard to not disappoint you Michigan during a sad time in our State's economic history.
I find it very challenging and yet so rewarding to speak to children, youth and adults starving for a more secure financial future. When the MI Jumpstart Coalition recently chose, "Taking Charge of Michigan's Financial Future" as their tagline, they did so with a commitment to change the way individual's think about saving and spending.
The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. did a survey this year, and had 76% of students reporting that they "wish they had more help preparing for their financial future." I personally find figures like this very revealing along with our negative debt rate in America for the past two years. Upon a recent visit to Brighton High School, students were shocked to learn that not every high school senior in Michigan must take personal finance prior to graduation.
While the unemployment, foreclosures and bankruptcies in our state continuing to rise each month, I am baffled to learn that holiday spending is up from previous years. What do the citizens of our country not understand? Plenty is my response... We cannot expect citizens to just know how to handle money if only 31% of Americans talk about family finances in their households and children are not taught personal finance in school.
So who will answer the call? My dream is for every child in the State of Michigan to have personal finance integrated in K-12 curriculum and every high school student to be required to have a one semester personal finance class. What value is there to educational systems if children are not taught how to become self sufficient? What do you think we should really be modeling and teaching them? Share your thoughts with Michigan leaders and citizens? Can we afford to pass the increasing debt and credit problems to one more generation? |
