You finally turn eighteen and gain full responsibility and freedom over the choices you make moving forward. You decide to get yourself your first credit card; however, you aren’t prepared for the hidden fees that you incurred when you first signed up. You get a low credit score and apply to rent an apartment you know you could afford, but the landlord takes one look at your credit score and decides not to let you move in. Banks can’t give you the loan you want, believing you can’t pay the money back, but you weren’t aware of that rule. Imagine this, but with saving, insurance, planning life goals, and more. Many don’t have the option of being taught this, but at Edison we do.
As a CTE school, Edison has a responsibility not just to prepare students with special career-oriented hard skills, such as coding, robotics, data analytics, and more. A student can be the most prepared in their career or college after graduating, yet this one skill can hurt or help them the most if taught properly: financial literacy.
According to FAFSA, “Financial literacy refers to the understanding that includes how to earn, manage, and invest money and has a critical impact on students’ ability to make smart choices.” Soon, seniors will become college freshmen, choosing whether to take a student loan, calculating how much FAFSA they are earning, and how to save and use their money carefully for the future. This made the Career and Financial Management Class exist.
According to the New York State Education Department, the Career and Financial Management class is a one-half unit course required for all students enrolled in a CTE program. The CFM class exists to allow students to learn real-world skills, specifically financial literacy and money management skills that are meant to prepare them for the adult world. Many students have expressed gratitude, while others, including staff, have expressed criticism.
“I like the CFM class we do. I feel like it taught me a lot about the real world and finances. I learned about taxes, student loans, and how to take care of our personal health,” expressed Maryam Akbar, Senior.
Career Financial Management class consists of lessons on budgeting, how checking vs savings accounts work, what debt is, but also necessary skills for the adult world, such as taking care of yourself, and even choosing the best career for you. Due to many graduating students’ struggles with basic adulting skills due to a lack of education from school and family, CFM as the saving grace of “How To Be an Adult” class.
“Edison’s current curriculum is designed to build a strong foundation in financial understanding. Twelfth-grade economics teachers draw from a range of high-quality resources, including materials from the Federal Reserve, Passport to Social Studies, and NGPF,” according to Ms.Butto, the Economics teacher of Edison whose lessons often encourage understanding of financial literacy and macro-to-micro economic principles.
Positivity has been expressed by students regarding the CFM class. “So what I really like about it is that I like how it’s like the first step into teaching students about money, and preparing them for the next step,” says Samuel Mina, senior, when asked about what he appreciates about the mandatory Wednesday class students have taken since 11th grade. “I feel like it should start being like a mandatory class, because I feel like this type of stuff is more helpful compared to stuff like ELA,” Mina said, referring to possibly taking the class daily.
“It is difficult to definitively measure long-term effectiveness without consistent data from graduates….. those who do return often share that they feel confident managing their personal finances, which suggests the curriculum is having a meaningful impact,” Ms. Butto stated.
Yet, when Mina was asked if he believes his peers are satisfied with CFM, he stated, “ I can’t speak for them, but I would probably say no even though the class itself isn’t bad. It’s literally the fact that it’s one day where, to be honest, I forgot that it was even sort of like a mandatory class … you know, like it’s a 45-minute thing and we just move on the very next day. So it has no real impact. But at the end of the day, I’m just- I can’t speak for them.”
This means students possibly aren’t taking the CFM education as seriously as teachers expect them to. Some could assume that the curriculum doesn’t excite students strongly, or that the students don’t understand the true value they’re getting from these lessons.
We’ve seen that there has been a mixed consensus on CFM. Some believe that students aren’t taking their lessons seriously, yet it does help in the future, according to teachers meeting with graduates. There is a possibility that the CFM curriculum needs to be paired with Economics better or more strongly, since much information from Economics could greatly benefit students in CFM, yet the students who aren’t able to take Economics may be negatively impacted by the lack of information.
There are still flaws in CFM that many aren’t aware of or aren’t discussed often.
“I personally think it would work better as a full-year course: one semester of micro and macroeconomics and one semester focused on personal finance,” Butto stated. “Overall, I like to think it’s less about something we’re doing “wrong” and more about continuing to build on what’s already working and making it even better for future students.”
The CFM class has strong importance for Edison students, yet it is riddled with concerns and flaws that could possibly be addressed in upcoming years.
