Alabama’s high school students will learn a little bit more about personal finance after the state Board of Education approves changes to a required course.
Rep. Andy Whitt, R-Harvest, who told lawmakers that as a community banker for the past 30 years, has seen a decline in people who understand the basics of personal finance. The “A lot of superintendents were worried we were going to add another course,” Mackey said. “So we’re just modifying the course they already have to take so they don’t have to add a course.”- which covers career development, technology and financial literacy - became a graduation requirement starting with the class of 2017. Just under half of the required 140 hours of coursework are devoted to financial literacy.
The tweak the committee proposed, Jones said, is to add standards about taxes, including why taxes are necessary, how they are used, what types of taxes there are and how those taxes are computed.“A lot of companies were approaching school districts trying to sell them financial literacy programs,” she added, but schools won’t have to purchase anything from an outside vendor.