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Graduation Requirement: Let’s have the Legislature go first

Sometimes you have to laugh at the Sacramento hubris otherwise you will just cry.  Such was the state of affairs last week when the wise folks in Sac added "personal finance" to the required high school curriculum.  From the Merc:

Last week, California became the 26th state to require high school students to take a stand-alone, one-semester financial literacy course when Gov. Gavin Newsom approved Democratic Assemblymember Kevin McCarty’s bill, AB 2927.  The personal finance course will teach students a range of topics, including banking, budgeting, loans, insurance, investing and credit.

Schools will be required to offer the course by the 2027-28 school year, and the course will be a graduation requirement for the class of 2030-31.

“We need to help Californians prepare for their financial futures as early as possible,” Newsom said in a recent statement. “Saving for the future, making investments and spending wisely are lifelong skills that young adults need to learn before they start their careers, not after.”

I will add they especially need these skills if they want to start a career in politics.  Let's go back to February when two people who understand finance reiterated concerns about the mess called the state budget.  Studying "budgeting" and "credit"?  Let's let the Legislature take the course before the high school kids, please.

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10 responses to “Graduation Requirement: Let’s have the Legislature go first”

  1. Joe

    The latest Exodus numbers are in for 2022 and it’s not looking good for the formerly Golden State. Newsom is busy positioning himself for a promotion while Rome burns. Here’s the tale of the tape:
    The IRS last week published its annual data on the migration of taxpayers and adjusted gross income (AGI) between states. California ranked, again, as the biggest income loser ($23.8 billion) in 2022, followed by New York ($14.2 billion), Illinois ($9.8 billion), New Jersey ($5.3 billion) and Massachusetts ($3.9 billion).
    California lost nearly three times as much income in 2022 to other states as it did in 2019. (Cumulative loss of AGI 2019-2022 are -$80 billion).
    California Gov. Gavin Newsom assails these states as cultural backwaters. Yet California lost income in 2022 to most Republican-led states, including Texas ($5.4 billion), Florida ($2.9 billion), Tennessee ($1.5 billion), Utah ($940 million), South Carolina ($370 million) and Alabama ($140 million). Why are so many fleeing the Golden State?
    Blame in part its high energy and housing costs. Electricity costs two to three times as much, and gasoline $1 to $2 a gallon more, as in states without burdensome climate mandates. California’s median-priced home ($860,500) is double that of most states owing to a housing shortage caused by zoning restrictions and environmental laws.
    Mr. Newsom hailed the “California dream” in his State of the State speech last week, but its crime and vagrancy are a nightmare. Buying a home is becoming harder for young people in California. The Governor also claimed red states “tax their lowest earners far more than California does.” And he calls Donald Trump a liar?
    California’s gas taxes are the highest in the country. It taxes middle-income earners at a higher top marginal rate (9.3% at $68,350) than most states do millionaires. Texas and Florida have no income tax. Sales taxes in most GOP-led states are also lower than in California. As are property taxes because home prices are lower.

  2. HMB

    Personal finance was part of the one semester curriculum in the “adult living” class I had to take in HS in Texas in the 70s. We learned about apartment rental contracts, car loans, banking and credit — with special attention to interest rates and compounding. Really practical stuff. We also learned some home ec stuff re shopping, cooking, laundry and minor home repairs. Really useful.

  3. Jennifer Pfaff

    I’m pretty sure that is (more or less) what Mr. Nelson taught the students at Burlingame High School, back in the 2000s

  4. KRN-2024-Financial Planning and Investing-

    I am crafting and delivering the following courses to meet the legislative mandate.
    1. Personal Financial Planning-Honors (Financial Literacy) (Fall)
    2.Introduction to Investing-Honors (Spring).
    These courses are exceptional for all students but are created for students in the Business Pathway at Aragon.
    Budgeting is part of the curriculum.
    These pre-business courses will match their popular college counterparts in terms of academic content and practice.
    In 2015, Burlingame High School was the only site in the SMUHSD and one of the few in the state that offered a full year of AP Microeconomics-AP Macroeconomics, enabling students to enter college in upper division business and economics courses.
    Approximately 75-100 BHS seniors completed a full year of college economics prior to graduation and college matriculation.
    This unique advanced economics program was sacrificed as part of the Yim-Gate-Skelly-Gate fraud and debacle.
    The students also engage in concepts of proper Legal Standards, Ethical Behavior, and Fiduciary Responsibility– attributes necessary for credible and honorable practice and respect.

  5. Jennifer Pfaff

    Well, that’s been a huge loss for BHS… On another topic, does the California Junior Statesman program still exist at the high school level? That was a lot of fun at SMHS back in the day…

  6. Mom

    Aragon is in good hands. BHS? Not so sure.

  7. Michelle

    Glad my son will graduate in 2027, as the state of CA will I’m sure dumb down what could be a useful class. Like Ethnic Studies, in which he just earned an A for drawing pictures and repeating woke nonsense.
    Sorry to hear BHS no longer has the Economics program, he would have loved to take those classes, or Investing.

  8. KRN-BHS could be in good hand again-

    BHS could be in good hands…again
    It is an election year for Greg Land if the BIS principal intends to retain his seat as Burlingame’s Trustee on the SMUHSD Board.
    The solution is very simple, legal, and required of the Board.
    The 2016 Involuntary Transfer of Mr. Nelson -is now proven and documented to be fraudulent. The Board is required to “reverse” the action, disclose these issues to the public, and return Mr. Nelson to BHS.
    The SMUHSD Trustees are holding the evidence which includes “under oath” statements by former Superintendent Skelly and Deputy Superintendent of Human Resources Kirk Black confirming that the Trustees were intentionally “lied to, misled, deceived, and had information withheld from them” so that the Board would remove Mr. Nelson from BHS via the 2016 Involuntary Transfer.
    Former Superintendent Skelly personally confirmed the acts of fraud and identified (by name) the “conspiracy of a few BHS teachers” who colluded with Principal Yim and Dr. Black to defraud the Trustees and have Mr. Nelson removed from BHS.
    -The Remedy
    The SMUHSD Trustee represent a single member district, owing their seat and vote to their constituents.
    Trustee Greg Land represents the constituents of the City of Burlingame and Burlingame High School.
    As both Burlingame’s Trustee and the Principal of BIS, Mr. Land should be ecstatic to have the opportunity to properly and legally return Mr. Nelson to Burlingame High School, as this has ALWAYS been the mandate of his constituents.
    It was also a promise (on the record) made by the Trustees to Mr. Nelson in March 2016.
    The involuntary transfer was to be for only up to three years (according to the district’s teacher contract)… it has now been eight years as the Trustee were defrauded (again) to violate their own contract.
    Trustee Land… its up to you to act as an honest, ethical, and transparent Trustee embracing the law while modeling proper behavior for your BIS students and the adults of Burlingame.
    BHS could be in good hands…again

  9. Peter Garrison

    Sounds good to e

  10. Joe

    This is not a late April Fool’s Day comment:
    Harvard University: The Ivy League teaching remedial math
    Harvard might be America’s most elite university — but now it’s offering remedial math classes.
    The school’s math department is providing a new scaled-back math class for freshmen who are apparently arriving on campus lacking “foundational skills” in high school math basics like geometry and algebra.
    Harvard is quick to blame these math gaps on pandemic learning losses — but, in truth, administrators brought this mess on themselves by scrapping standardized testing requirements during the pandemic, all in the name of equity.
    When the remedial program’s pilot was announced in September, Harvard’s director of introductory math, Brendan Kelly, told The Harvard Crimson that they were seeing students facing “a challenge that was unreasonable given the supports we had in the [regular] course” in the wake of the pandemic.
    “Students don’t have the skills that we had intended downstream in the curriculum,” Kelly added. “We want to make sure that students are on a path to success starting from their first day.”
    The new course, called Math MA, is one year long and meets five days a week, compared with the regular two days. According to the department’s website, “extra support will target foundational skills in algebra, geometry, and quantitative reasoning that will help [students] unlock success.”
    ——————–
    Wouldn’t it be cool if California Assembly and Senate members had to get a minumum score on the Math SAT or ACT?

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