Florida high school students are now guaranteed to complete a personal finance course before they pass graduation, as the Dorothy Hukill Financial Literacy Act was signed into law on Tuesday! Beginning with students entering 9th grade in the 2023-2024 school year, all Florida high school students will complete a one-semester course that teaches them how to manage a bank account, file tax returns, build long-term wealth through investing and a lifetime of budgeting habits.
This post is one of the ways we say “THANK YOU” to the heroic educators and advocates who have worked so hard to build to this turning point in the Mission 2030 movement.
Over the past 6 months, our team’s advocacy work in the state has included meetings with key lawmakers, Representative Demi Busatta Cabrera and Senator Travis Hutson, as well as dozens of other lawmakers, educators, district superintendents and other stakeholders. The idea that all high school students in Florida should receive comprehensive personal finance education received bipartisan support with unanimous votes in the Florida House and Senate. The widespread popularity of this bill was also evident in recent polls conducted in early March by the polling agency Public Policy Polling. Their poll found that 85% of Florida voters agreed that high school students should be guaranteed a course in personal finance.
Whether you’re advocating at the school/district or at the state level, there are signs of progress everywhere. The signing of this law is another indication of the momentum moving towards greater access to financial education:
Since 2018, the number of states that guarantee that all students take a stand-alone personal finance course has more than doubled from 5 states (Alabama, Missouri, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia) to 11 states by 2022 (which includes Florida, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio and Rhode Island) During the same period, the number of high schools outside of these guarantee states that have made personal finance a local guarantee also more than doubled from 600 to 1,500+ The rhythm continues in schools and in legislatures – as early as 2022 NGPF awarded 26 Gold Standard Challenge scholarships to high schools that made personal funding a local guarantee, and 26 state lawmakers introduced fifty-six bills to expand access to financial education (Source: NGPF FinEd BillTracker).
Our organization is committed to supporting both the passage and implementation of course assurances for personal finance. The Next Gen Personal Finance (NGPF) curriculum and industry-leading professional development are offered to educators at no cost. More than 59,000 personal finance educators across the country — including 1,700 in Florida’s newest guarantee state — already use the NGPF curriculum, reaching more than 80% of high school students.
You must love seeing Florida go orange on the NGPF Got Finance? School Search Map. Which state will be next?
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NGPF’s Yanely Espinal op-ed appeared in the Miami Herald and CNBC highlighted the importance of Florida’s legislation to ensure financial education.
About the Authors
Tim Ranzetta
Tim’s savings habits started at 7 a.m. when a neighbor with a broken hip gave him a dog walking job. Her recovery, which lasted nearly a year, led to Tim getting to know the bank clerks quite well (and building a savings account balance of over $300!). His recent entrepreneurial adventures include driving a chipper, analyzing compensation packages for Fortune 500 companies, and helping families make better college funding decisions. After volunteering in 2010 to establish a personal finance program and teach at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, Tim saw firsthand the impact of an engaging and activity-based curriculum, which inspired him. to start a new nonprofit, Next Gen Personal Finance. †
Yanely Espinal
Born and raised by Dominican immigrant parents in Brooklyn, Yanely is a proud product of NYC public schools. She graduated from Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School in 2007 before receiving her undergraduate degree from Brown University in 2011. As a member of the Teach For America Corps, Yanely taught third and fourth grades in Canarsie, Brooklyn. She received her master’s degree from the Relay Graduate School of Education in 2013. She spends her free time making YouTube videos about personal finance on her channel, MissBeHelpful. Yanely also enjoys dancing, sewing, painting, listening to podcasts and babysitting her 7 future nieces and nephews!
Christian Sherrill
Christian comes to NGPF from the world of classroom education, where he taught for three years at a public high school in El Sobrante, California. After leaving the classroom, he joined the math tutoring company Zeal Learning to grow their teacher-centric sales and marketing efforts. He is no stranger to making a dime – while living in the Bay Area off his teacher salary, he paid over $40k in student loans in the span of 3 years. He loves sharing those lessons with teachers and students in the US
This post Florida becomes the 11th largest state with a personal financial guarantee for high school students!
was original published at “https://www.ngpf.org/blog/advocacy/florida-11th-and-largest-state-high-school-personal-finance-course/”
