WBA pushes for financial literacy

With the signing of Assembly Bill 280, bankers in Wisconsin finally got financial literacy education formally included in state curriculum standards.

In the past, mandated financial literacy sounded a little too much like an unfunded mandate. By taking another approach, financial literacy advocates seem to have a better chance at getting a bill passed this session. Assembly Bill 280 directs each school board to adopt standards for financial literacy and work its instruction into the curriculum throughout K-12; the legislation does not include definitive testing metrics.

“It has the same authors this year as it did last year,” Wisconsin Bankers Association’s Director of Government Relations Jon Turke said. “It was very important to them they get financial literacy done, and they had a grand plan of making it more prescriptive, actually having a test, but that’s part of the give and take of legislating.”

Wisconsin Assemblyman Terry Katsma chairs the committee on financial institutions in which the bill originated and credited a bipartisan effort for finding the needed middle ground.

“This time we softened it up a little bit, didn’t quite make it mandatory but highly encouraged it,” Katsma said. “With that compromise, it was able to get through.”

As far as the WBA is concerned, the bill is more than just encouragement for furthered financial literacy. It is also an entry point for bankers to contribute to that cause both with time and resources.

“Financial education is an important aspect of every person’s life,” WBA President and CEO Rose Oswald Poels said. “It’s more than simply knowing how to save for retirement or balance a checkbook. It’s learning how to make sound choices that will help people become financially empowered in every corner of the state. If a person is lacking the basics of financial literacy, they are open to being taken advantage of, and are susceptible to a financially unstable future.

“Wisconsin’s banks are here to help support our schools with implementing financial education as part of the everyday curriculum,” Oswald Poels said.