 Hi, I am Jan Reardon and I am here representing the Jennifer Reardon Foundation. Jennifer Reardon is my sister-in-law and I am very honored and pleased to be able to carry on her mantra of being kind, loving, caring and sharing and identifying different programs and people that support that mantra is very important to me and to our family. Jennifer has an amazing legacy. She was larger than life in life and continues to be in her passing so that brings us a great deal of comfort and I was just thinking on the way over. I am so fortunate to have so many people from the Burlington area that have been so supportive whether they knew Jen or not, they know of her and people rise to the occasion when you talk about being kind and Vermont is to me the best there is as far as that community. But the four pillars of Jen's foundation, the Jennifer Reardon Foundation, our early childhood education, women's empowerment, financial literacy and community vibrancy. So today I have the absolute pleasure, I am going to be able to kick back here, have some popcorn and just listen because I am so excited to be talking to John Pelletier who is the director of the Center for Financial Literacy over at Champlain College and with that I am just so excited to hear about the training program that John has in place and what is happening at the state level to be able to bring personal finance into K-12, primarily high school but we are going to get to hear all about that and John I just want to say thank you for being here, this is John Pelletier and I would like you to just give us a little bit of background, kind of get us up to speed on the status of things with personal finance in the school system because I look back and think where did home echo, all of those nice basic things and personal finance, I don't think you can talk to somebody in high school that knows how to do their taxes or knows how to do a budget and to plan on purchasing a home or getting their first apartment and all of those pieces, I mean it's overwhelming and to think that we're getting real close to bringing that into the schools is very exciting and I would just love to obviously have you get us up to speed on what is happening in Vermont. Sure, let's start with where we are and where we could be. Yes, that's always a good distinction. So, where we are and we've made progress, so our center started in 2011 and when the center started in Vermont we had these framework standards where everything your child needed to know about personal finance in grades K through 12 would fit on an 8 by 11 piece of paper in about three and a half inches. Right, right. So that changed. That's familiar, yes. That changed due to the good work of the agency of education as part of a total rewrite of all standards and bringing us up to other national standards like the Common Core English and Math and national standards on FISAD and national standards on Science and Social Science. Of course, it should be right there, exactly. They adopted these great national standards that the most recent version is the standards were created by committees created from the Council of Economic Education and the Jumpstart National Coalition in Washington, D.C. And so those standards have been around, I don't even know if it's the fifth or sixth edition or the seventh, they've been around for a while. What I would call modern national standards in financial literacy probably came into being just around 2000, maybe 98 or 1999. So what I think of financial literacy and its modern sense as opposed to home economics which is a lot of things other than financial literacy, it's not even 25 years old and a lot of respects in our country. And so there's been a movement to move those along. So those standards, they were implemented or approved, I should say, by the State Board of Education in January of 2017. One of the problems with Vermont is we're not a standards-based state anymore. We are a proficiency-based state. So we ran into a problem where all these standards have to be converted into proficiencies. And we do this. Okay, I did not know that. Hampshire does it and nobody else does it. So I won't get into that. Okay, that's its own topic, right? But it created a hurdle where we needed to get these standards through the system and financial literacy was going to be behind a lot of other topics. So we were really fortunate and we raised money from, my center was able to raise money from the National Life Group, a big, big donation from Northfield Savings Bank. I saw that. That is wonderful. Also from the Next Gen Personal Finance, which is a nonprofit in this space. And what we did is we were able to hire a group of 16 educators, pay them. We worked on this project for a couple of years. We were just ready to release everything. It got out on the website and then COVID hit. And the penultimate delivery was supposed to be educator training. Six different events across the states, two for elementary, two for middle school teachers and two for high school. And so we had to kind of go back to our donors and say, look, we got to figure out a way to deliver this online. Right. And so we did and we actually Fabulous. Delivered this education online, not once but twice, because once it's there you could re-release it again. And my understanding is that was the largest attended professional development event by educators in Vermont ever according to the AOE. Right. Just to know, I mean, the need is there and it's appreciated and everybody is aware whether it be the parents and the educators and the schools, people know the importance and it's just a matter of having it happen. So just to be clear, because I've obviously been out of school for a little while here, but is it available but as an elective and this would make it available as a requirement or is it not even available? Technically, so I think technically the way it works is these standards have been approved. Okay. There's an expectation that something is being done at the local district level, the supervisory union level. There are no mandate police. See, that's what I was wondering. So it's really not monitored. There's not really a big review method. And so I'll just focus on the high schools in the state and what's going on now because it gets even more complex when you get into elementary and middle. But at the high school level, there are a couple of ways to deliver this information. You can deliver it in a standalone personal finance class. So that would be a half-year course where nothing else is taught in personal finance. And about 12% or 13% of the high schools in the state, and I think with some changes that have already been approved in South Burlington, BFA, St. Albans, it's going to be either seven or eight high schools in the state, out of about 60-plus, that will have a high school graduation mandate. You have to take that course to graduate. Fabulous. I mean, that is the end goal, I'm assuming, right? That's the gold standard, right? If you wanted to do that. So that means about 12% of the state is getting it that way. Excuse me, John, but what is the personal finance curriculum? What does that look like? A lot of different topics. I mean, it's career and income. So really focusing on things like student loans. Right, because I noticed Winooski High School has done very, very well. Yeah, Courtney's fantastic. Yes. Yes, I was so pleased. And, you know, again, talking about, you know, really, okay, what if you get out of school and 40% of remonters are not going to college? Absolutely correct, absolutely correct. And so how do you function out in the world and make sure that you're not making mistakes at this age that haunt you 20 years later and the importance of your credit score and everything? So that's all covered during that particular semester? Oh, yeah, I mean, yeah, that. And things like, you know, important things, like understanding the, I think a key concept, foundational concept is compound interest. Exactly, right. Not only as it relates to savings and growing your retirement account, but debt. Yes, yes. Whether it's mortgage or not, we'll be alone. And that's all covered. Credit, oh yeah, absolutely. Got it. Understanding, you know, where to find your credit reports because there's always mistakes on them. It covers anything to do with credit, anything to do with banking products. Fabulous. Savings, investing, career and income, student loan. And career and income means, you know, even that whole college exploration piece. Sure. Trying to understand. Exactly how you're paying for that. You know, using Courtney and, Courtney Paquette, who's the high school educator at Winooski, that's a great example of, you know, and many of the teachers at programs like this where, you know, students go and they say, okay, if I got that job that I'm interested in, what's the starting pay? Yeah. All right, now find out what's it going to cost me to rent my own apartment. Right. How am I going to pay for transportation? And what does the benefits really mean? They mentioned that too. Like, sure. You know, the value of that. People think, oh, it's not important. Well, you talk about a health care, exact health care. I mean, the benefits are a pretty key component. So that was mentioned. And then, as we discussed earlier, my good friend Bob Ferdette is up at LaMoyle. And he's doing an amazing job with an entrepreneurship program and running a business. So the students are really getting to budget in real life as far as how to make a business successful. Yeah. And George Cook, an educator at U32, has a very similar program to Bob's. Yes. So there's pockets of excellence across the state. So if it's not being done that way through a standalone course, it's two other ways it can happen. One is an elective. Right. Now the problem with elective by its very nature means that probably 75% maybe more will never take that course before they graduate. So an elective isn't guaranteed access to the topic or the knowledge. Exactly. And then the other place that might be is embedded in something like an economics course. Right. And that's the way it's delivered in a lot of states. There's quite a few states. Which is great. But then again, what's the percentage that do not go in that direction for economics? Right. I mean, it wouldn't be like, hey, sign me up. I was in a different direction. Say if you're in more with English and language and that's your preference. Absolutely correct. Then that's why having that course in place as a requirement can be life altering. Oh, absolutely. Personal finance knowledge is life altering. It's not just life altering to the students. It actually can be life altering to the educator. And to the community. I mean, you talk about community vitality. Well, it comes back to that. We want people to thrive and to obviously stay in Vermont and to be here and to know how to handle their finances, to be able to manage that lifestyle. Yeah. And it really comes down to, I mean, if you can compound interest, you can build wealth greater. The other thing is, if you can focus on having the highest credit score possible, that can literally in a lifetime save you hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest payments that you can do something else with. Exactly, exactly. So it's critically important skills, budgeting, things of that nature. But personal finance is a difficult course to teach because it's not like a lot of other courses where, so the best way I can think about it is, you can get a straight A on a personal finance exam and fail in life. Because even though you might have the knowledge, you might not implement it in your own life because maybe you're someone who can't defer gratification. Maybe you're a bit of a spendthrift by nature. Right, right. But I'd have to believe and obviously there are models out there. I don't know what kind of monitoring does go on as far as tracking some of the activities of certain kids that have gone through a program such as this, but to be able to see the benefits and true, you're never going to hit every student in the same way just personality wise and everything. But again, it's one of those things where it's, you know, I can always remember saying to my son when he's kind of struggling like, do I go back to school when he's in between sophomore, junior year and it's like, you're never going to say, I wish I didn't have this degree. You're never going to say, I wish I didn't know so much about personal finance. Even though some kids might take their own path on when to implement that knowledge that they have, we still have to get it in there because sadly, so many mistakes are made just because of the lack of knowledge, not choosing not to apply it, but just not even knowing. So this is so exciting. And the studies show that schools that are in impoverished areas are less likely to bring this into the curriculum, but then Winooski's highlighted and obviously struggles with poverty, but also, English as a second language and they can do it. So to me, I'm thinking, Winooski, what a way to really get on the radar to show that other communities can do this. So I'm so happy that we have something like that in this area to point to for success. Yeah, and Courtney's been doing it there for, oh gosh, I think almost 16 years. Oh, I had no idea it was that. Yeah, it's been a long time. Not as a requirement. That's more recent. Right, right. But she's been teaching that particular course for a long time. And to your point, yes, the data absolutely shows. The point I was trying to make is what makes financial literacy more like driver's ed or sex ed or sexual harassment, prevention training and writing is you're trying to change behavior through knowledge. So there's an extra step. You're right. That's a great analogy. Yes, absolutely. Not everything is about behavior. Like math, I don't think is about behavior is did you get the problem right or not? If you take a physics class or things of that nature. So this is about changing behavior as well as imparting knowledge. It has two components and that makes it more difficult. And just to kind of muddy the waters, does behavior modification get folded into this course? Is that a part, in fact, of a personal finance semester? You know, perhaps that's something that really needs to be one of the key elements. Yeah, I mean, you're trying to teach the right behaviors. Yes, yes. And that's and the right habits of mine, if you will. And then the other the other piece is the other point where you mentioned is it doesn't work. What are the studies show? The studies show at work. And my favorite researcher is Carly Urban at Montana State University, a good friend. And the reason I love her work is she uses these giant national databases either from federal student loan data or data from places like Experian and TransUnion. And she has looked at places where mandates go through requirements to teach this. Okay. As a high school graduation requirement in certain states. And she has looking at data before and after. Fabulous. And that young cohort. And what does it show? It shows, you know, I'll just go through them really quickly. Please. It goes through first and foremost, we see increases, materially, these are all statistically significant, increases in credit scores, reductions in 90-day default rates. We see with regard to those taking out student loans from states that have this, they're doing the right thing behaviorally. By that I mean, you know, they're going to maximize Pell grants, they're going to maximize subsidized versus unsubsidized loans first. They're going to grab those federal loans, which have a lot more protections including the income-based repayment before they get private loans. And the other thing that came out of a research with student loans, which was surprising, that students from those states with student loans, they spend less, or I should say they have less credit card debt. Because what people don't understand is credit cards are used a lot to pay for education, whether it's books or sometimes to kind of complete a payment for tuition for some folks. And then you were mentioning the equity issue, which is if a state doesn't require or guarantee, is probably a better word, that everyone get equal access to personal finance education before they graduate from high school. Carly and next-gen, and I was involved with looking at that data years ago too, and it's constantly being updated, we want to see in those states where you don't require it and it's left to local control what happens. And the presumption of those of us involved with looking at that data based on our own personal experience was it was being inequitably delivered into the schools. I see. And it is. So the way it works is if you come from a school district that is 75% or more free and reduced lunch, or 75% or more black and brown students, so majority, minority, right? Right. Those school districts, the chance of you being in a district in those states that don't have this requirement, the chance of you getting that is one out of 20 or one out of 21. Okay, so I hate to be naive here, but why? Well, let me, let me see what happens. Okay. Let's enrich white districts. Okay. In districts where you have a less than 25% free and reduced lunch. Right. Or a less than 25% black and brown population, the odds of you getting it are one in seven. So, so basically you're three times more likely, right? Right. To get it if you're rich and white. Exactly. But that's what I wanted. Poor and urban. Right, right. There's, there's a big divide between urban. And both students need it. I'm not making light of the fact that both need that, but why, you know, again, would it be? I think it's the parents, probably, I'm guessing. Not as much of a priority and pushing for that. Yeah. Or the opposite, right? That the, perhaps the parents are a little bit more involved in pushing for it. Oh, I see. Yes. And the, and perhaps the white or richer communities and seeing it because there, there's a, the reality about financial literacy is there's a demographic divide. Yes. Right. And so who's the most financially literate? And there are, there are a couple of organizations that do this. There's the Georgetown University Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center with S&P, the S&P organization does a study survey every year of adults and Finnerer does a survey. And the, both of them show that pretty much the same thing and there's tons of data on this. The more educated you are, the more financially literate you are. Right. The richer you are, the more financially literate you are. There's a racial divide. That's pretty dramatic. Yes. Whites and Asians look very different than Hispanics and blacks. Yes. There is a gender difference. Males are more financially literate than women. And that, and that's currently the case. It has not shifted. It has, young, so there's, there, there is a difference, a nearer difference the younger you are. There's an age. Yes. Going on to. Yes. So there's an age element of it and. Multifaceted, right? Yeah. So many layers. And then people who are, if you're working, you're more financially literate than the unemployed or disabled. Yes. And so there, there are all these things that are, that are real, that have all sorts of impacts. Right. And so, you know, you, arguably, when you look at that kind of equity issue at the high school level, you know, you might almost be arguing that the communities that need it the least. Yes. Are the most likely to get the most of it. Yes. And that's why I think, you know, you really, if you really want to address this issue, we need to guarantee access for all. And that's why I'm excited with the House bill. Absolutely. Yes. So please tell us a little bit, myself included, but the audience, what is the status and what is the current situation regarding the legislature on this topic of bringing this to schools and having it be guaranteed? Well, I mean, the first, you know, that's right now. Okay. It's H228. So, H, period 228. Okay. If you want to look it up at the Vermont legislature, you can see it. And the bill was, had 20 co-sponsors. So that's great. That's a pretty good number. Yes. And... And who are co-sponsors? Well, like an example. Representative Jerome is the lead sponsor. Oh, okay. Great. Yeah, and she's the lead sponsor, but they're like, I come from Stowe, who's my rep is on it. Wonderful. I mean, it's... So it's statewide. It's not... It's statewide and it's Democrats. It's Republicans. It's not... It's not one party or the other. Great. And when we're seeing this across the country, this is a purple issue. Exactly. This is not a blue... Exactly. Thank God. This is not a blue issue. Yeah, that helps a lot. With all the other layers, you know, at least you don't have to mix that in. And so, hard to know what's going to happen next week. So if it doesn't come out of committee, the odds of it becoming a law this year or low, the good news is it's a two-year session. Oh, okay. So if it doesn't happen this year, we still get another bite at the office. And what would cause it to not come out of committee this year? What's happening? I think it's priorities... I think the fundamental question is, because you have to have hearings, right? And they've had a few, but they have to have a lot more. They have to allocate their hearing time to certain bills that perhaps they feel are a little bit more pressing. Burner, right. Yeah, so there's like, for example, the bill where they're looking at how do we reallocate the money to the different schools on the pure pupil, per pupil weightings based on, you know, ELL and free and reduced lunch and all those sorts of different minority categories and things of that nature. And similar to I was either last year or the year before, they had a look at how they're going, they changed the funding mechanism for people with disabilities. Personalized learning, the IEP type plans. So the personal finance curriculum, is that pure as a bill or is that kind of tucked into a few other things? Right now it's a standalone bill and that's the other thing. It's conceivable. I think it really to be blunt. I think it, whether or not this gets passed at all or whether or not it gets passed this session is entirely dependent upon voters actually reaching out to their legislators or reaching out to the House and Senate Education Committee members. They're easy to find online. Their emails are all there. But what motivates that person to do so? Are they aware that it's the status right now of where it is and what needs to happen to push it forward is? Probably not. And that's going to be the goal of different local organizations like Jumpstart Vermont and others. People are going to need to get out the word. Communicate, right. Because I think the poll that we paid for, a group in Raleigh, North Carolina did, it's overwhelmingly supported by a lot of adults. Exactly. Yes, I saw those results. There was one poll question where they were asking, after you found out that only 12% of students, high school students of Raleigh, have guaranteed access for us. How important do you think this is? Very important, somewhat important. Those two together were over 90%. Right. So to me it just seems, and again, I'm not in the trenches like you are. You know so much more. But me on the outside, it's like, well, it's a given. It has to go through. It has to start. Like, why isn't it? But I understand the process, obviously, is cumbersome. But it just seems, and thankfully, it's a two-year session, it just seems as though you get this far. Like, how can you lose traction now? Well, I mean, we are a local control state to such a degree that virtually every graduation requirement is at the local level. Right. So I believe it's Algebra 1 in geometry. I believe that's it. There are very few classes that are required. Yes. There are topics. I was surprised at that. I know. And that has changed a lot. So that doesn't mean there aren't like, you have to take three math and four English. Those requirements exist at everybody's high schools. Yes. But they're not state mandated. They're not like minimum state requirements in many other states. That's set at the local level. Right. So as you said, we're very similar to New Hampshire, but most states are not that way where it's localized. It isn't statewide, would you say, typically? Having spent a lot of time looking at all the states, I would say this level of freedom left to the school district is in the minority. Right. That's my impression. There are actually graduation standards, minimum standards, and by that, so many civics in history. Exactly. Social studies and phys ed. There are minimum, very clear minimum standards that are set at the state level, often by the legislature or by an organization like the State Board of Education that we have in Vermont, or a combination of the two of them through law and regulation. But I want to be clear. The only state doing it this way. Right. Massachusetts is very loose, and they have a great educational system. Yes, yes. Vermont has local control. Nebraska has local control. And by local control, could that mean that a teacher at Essex High School could say that I want to have a certain focus on personal finance, have it be included with something, not have to jump through a lot of hoops and just kind of have that happen, or it gets embedded into another class? Maybe. I mean, it usually happens. So if you look at the states, if you look at, we'll talk about the schools where it's required now. Okay. So where it's required now, you'll have someone like, you know, like Bob or Courtney or somebody like that. They're the ambassadors. Exactly. They might start with an elective, say, hey, I want to do an elective. Right. And then he becomes an incredibly popular elective. And then they go, well, gee, 60% of the kids are taking this. And they can make that shift. Why don't we make it a mandate? And that happens. It's happened in this state. It happens all across the country. Yeah, to that level. That's impressive. It's a common way. It's a grassroots way. Yes, yes. Very organic. It's happening. It happens here. I know many teachers who have done it that way. And so in those states, that's one way to get to the mandate. Right. Is that local school board, right? Yes. Supervisory union. Exactly. So the local supervisory union school board is saying, hey, we're going to require this. And that is certainly a way it gets done. As opposed to I want to do an elective, that's probably just the principle. Right, right. Who's going to be approached to agree that it will be an elective added to the list? I see. Right. And if it's a private school, what happens? If it's a private school, they can do whatever they want to. They can do whatever they want. And do you know of any private schools where that is in place? There certainly are some. Right. There's life programs. It kind of goes back to, like I was saying with Homeac, where it kind of folds in a variety of different things that you need to know when you get out of those high school years. And then we have situations like what happened in Burlington. There was a time, not that long. So I've been running this center since 2011. We have a graduate program, not only just for Vermont teachers but for teachers across New England and New York State but also now across the country. And it's an online graduate course, three credit course. And what we've seen happen is at Burlington, they went from having a mandate to not having a mandate. Oh, interesting. I didn't know that. And that was because it was done by the business department and they got rid of the business department teachers. Oh boy. So then the program disappeared. Yes. So that's the thing, the sustainability is key. We are going to have to wrap up. I can't believe how quickly this went by. And I am so thankful for the information that you shared with myself and with the audience. And again, if there is anything that I can do to get the word out or help in any way, please get me connected to the right person and I'll get out there. I feel very passionate about this topic obviously as you certainly do and have committed and done so much in your life to see this happen. I would love to be as supportive as possible in moving this forward for Vermont. Thank you, Jim. Yes. Thank you so much, John. This has been great. And I hope that we'll continue to stay in touch. Absolutely. Again, if there's anything I can do, boots to the ground or whatever, send me out there and I'll be holding up some signs for you. Probably get an email next week. Good. I hope so. I hope so. Thank you so very much. Okay. Thank you.