February 16, 2009

INDIANAPOLIS -- High school teacher Daniel Jackson is reviewing lessons some adults would find difficult: mortgage loans, down payments, interest rates and closing costs. He tosses calculators to students, chastises them for not studying enough and urges them to apply problem-solving skills to decipher complex mortgage information.

"This is a tool for you to use," he says. "I'm not giving you a hammer so you can stuff it in a sock drawer." Soaring foreclosure rates and credit card debt are spurring some states to consider requiring personal finance classes in order to get a diploma, sparking criticism that parents should teach financial basics at home instead of packing life lessons into an already tight school day.

But advocates say the numbers -- $900 billion in credit card debt and an 81 percent increase in foreclosures last year -- show the dire need for financial education. "The silver lining to our country's economic conditions just may be that we place a greater emphasis on financial education, which does our country well for many generations," said Laura Levine, executive director of the Jump Start Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy.