In a typical Keys to Financial Success course, students learn the knowledge, skills, and processes required to make sound financial decisions and manage their own personal finances. The lessons engage students in critical thinking, problem solving, and decision-making. Courses are divided into nine themes, and each theme takes one to three weeks to cover. Rather than using a traditional text, which would rapidly become outdated as financial products, services, regulations, and laws change, the Keys to Financial Success course uses lessons from a variety of curriculum sources, including Financial Fitness for Life, Grades 9-12; VISA Practical Money Skills; Learning, Earning, and Investing; and original content created by the authors. Throughout the course, students use the Internet for access to the latest information on personal finance topics and financial products. This approach allows teachers to update lessons from year to year to reflect changes in the financial marketplace. Using knowledge gained from the lessons and information gleaned from the Internet, students create a personal portfolio of tools and data. The students are encouraged to keep their portfolios as a reference when making financial decisions as adults.
We are sure that you will find Keys to Financial Success to be a course that engages your students and leads to significant increases in their personal finance knowledge and their ability to manage their personal finances as adults.
Learn more about the lessons and curricula.
The Keys to Financial Success Experience
In spring 2001, the University of Delaware Center for Economic Education & Entrepreneurship, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, the Delaware Bankers Association, and the Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Maryland and Delaware formed a partnership to provide curriculum resources and teacher training to Delaware high school teachers interested in teaching a semester-long personal finance course. Work began in the late spring and early summer of 2001 to develop such a course. The course was designed by selecting from the best instructional materials currently available. Curriculum resources included in the course approach the teaching of personal finance using basic economic concepts. Furthermore, the lessons are flexible enough to allow the resulting course to be taught in many potential high school departments, including social studies, mathematics, family and consumer science, and business.
In the 2001-2002 school year, the first Keys to Financial Success course was offered as a pilot at a Delaware high school. Since then, more than 200 teachers in 85-plus high schools in Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey have been trained to teach personal finance using the Keys to Financial Success model. In addition, thousands of high school students have been taught how to make sound financial decisions and manage their personal finances.
Teacher Training Program
Each summer, the Delaware Council for Economic Education and the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia offer a weeklong teacher training program. The sessions are taught by the authors of the teacher's manual for the course and are geared for teachers who are beginning to use the Keys to Financial Success model. This training program is an invaluable professional development experience that ensures that new Keys teachers are well prepared to begin teaching the course the following September.
Cost
There is a $50 registration fee for the professional development portion of the Keys to Financial Success; however, materials and program information are free to schools and teachers. The Keys to Financial Success represents an excellent option for getting teachers and students started with personal financial education quickly.
Standards
Each lesson in the Keys to Financial Success program is correlated to the national content standards in financial literacy, personal finance, and economics as well as the Common Core State Standards.
For More Information
Todd Zartman
Economic Education Specialist
(215) 574-6457
todd.zartman@phil.frb.org