Bill HD.4938

HOUSE DOCKET, NO. 4938 FILED ON: 3/13/2020

HOUSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . No.

By Ms. Barber of Somerville (by request), a petition (subject to Joint Rule 12) of Tim Wallis relative to financial literacy in public schools. Education.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts

_______________

In the One Hundred and Ninety-First General Court
(2019-2020)

_______________

An Act relative to financial literacy in Massachusetts.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

SECTION 1 - Chapter 69 of the General Law is hereby amended by inserting the following after section 1Q the following section::

Section 1R. Financial Literacy Education in Massachusetts

SECTION 1 - FINANCIAL LITERACY EDUCATION IN MASSACHUSETTS

This document specifies minimum requirements for the implementation of a financial literacy education program in the public schools of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

SECTION 2 - DEFINITIONS

Public School - A school that is located in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and maintained at public expense, including state, local, and federal funding, for the education of the children of a community or district and that constitutes a part of a system of free public education commonly including primary and secondary schools.

Private School - A school that is located in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and privately funded through parent paid tuition charges or sponsored by organizations of specific religious, cultural, ethnic, or other non-inclusive class demographics. Characterized by no allocation of public funds, no requirement to accept enrollment from the public, conflicting interest in separation of church and state matters.

Curriculum - The aggregate of courses of study given in public schools.

Financial Literacy - Knowledge of the complex and real world systems involved in managing money on a daily basis, credit and credit worthiness, savings, budgeting, investments.

Standardized Testing - Testing designated through the course of K through 12 education that assesses the objective knowledge of financial literacy. Include a pre test, prior to introduction of curriculum, and a post test at a point after curriculum is delivered with analysis respect to improved accuracy.

Commissioned Study - Designation for fund allocation and set up, as determined by the State Board of Education, for the scientific collection and analysis of financial literacy efficacy through data collection past the point of graduation.

Designated Agent - Qualified academic institution or directly related private sector industry that is a subject matter expert in the financial literacy areas specified.

Special Education - Student group or academics relating to the development of pupils with disabilities as defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

SECTION 3 - STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

There is extensive debate regarding the efficacy of financial literacy education and the correlation between applied knowledge of personal finance best known methods and overall good financial health/satisfaction. There has been very little data collection with enough participants over a long enough time to make effective causal correlation between financial literacy education and long term financial behavior (Robb).

This legislation introduces general requirements in the Massachusetts K - 12 Public Education and Charter School curriculum for financial literacy educational inclusion. It provides data collection and standardized testing outlines for evaluation of financial literacy education effectiveness.

This legislation commissions the creation of an opt-in voluntary study in which students graduating the Massachusetts Public or Charter School System allow the ongoing, long-term collection of income, credit worthiness, and other financial health and satisfaction metrics as defined by the study authors.

This legislation is designed to provide both financial literacy education and the means to populate good data for evaluating the efficacy of financial literacy education over long-term periods, into adult life. The goal is to find enough data to evaluate the causality between financial literacy education and good financial habits with respect to a wide set of demographic data in real world scenarios.

SECTION 4 - PROVISIONS

This legislation applies to all Massachusetts Public and Charter Schools that receive public federal funding in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

This legislation complies with the recommendation set forth by the National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) issued in Who Will Own Our Children? The Report of the NASBE Commission on Financial and Investor Literacy (McCormick).

State boards of education must be fully informed about the status of financial literacy in their states.

States should consider financial literacy and investor education as a basic feature of K–12 education.

States should ensure that teachers and/or staff members teaching financial literacy concepts are adequately trained.States should fully utilize public/private partnerships.States should improve their capacity to evaluate financial literacy programs. States should include financial and investor education in their academic standards and ensure that assessments are aligned with the standards. State boards of education should cooperate with other state boards to develop a common assessment tool for financial and investor education. States should encourage the development of a National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) framework for financial literacy.

The Massachusetts State Board of Education or designated agent shall develop K - 6 financial literacy curriculum that include the following; to constitute no less than 40 hours of in class instruction per year: Financial goal setting, saving money, banks and savings accounts, parental involvement in opening a savings account, interest returned on savings. The Massachusetts State Board of Education or designated agent shall develop years 7 - 9 financial literacy curriculum that include the following; to constitute no less than 80 hours of in class instruction per year: Financial goal setting, saving money, banks and all account types (including checking), parental involvement in establishing banking as a minor, interest rates and return on investment, budgeting, check writing and debit card usage, deposits, withdrawals, and account reconciliation, overdrafts and resulting consequences, consumer reporting agencies for banking and credit (i.e. chex systems, the major three), bankable versus unbankable as it relates to poor account management and consumer reporting agencies, financial emergencies and the benefits of emergency funds, saving versus spending, need versus want spending. The Massachusetts State Board of Education or designated agent shall develop years 10 - 12 financial literacy curriculum that include the following; to constitute no less than 120 hours of in class instruction per year: All 7 - 9 year listed curriculum points, credit worthiness and the impact of negative credit, the FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act), credit report disputes, collection actions and garnishments, bankruptcy law and consequences, costs associated with college, financing options, and impacts, scholarships, online banking (simulated with real world closed system software), loans, credit cards, debt to income ratio, tax and student loan debts, buying a house versus renting, cryptocurrencies, stocks and investing, retirement planning

SECTION 5 - SPECIAL EXCEPTIONS

Private Schools are exempt from this legislation.

Special Education curriculum and instruction are exempt from this legislation.

SECTION 6 - OTHER PROVISIONS

A position on the Massachusetts State Board of Education shall be created to act as a liaison between the United States Department of Education and other State Boards of Education as it pertains to the education of financial literacy. This includes but is not limited to proliferating standardized assessment and standardized best known method infrastructure for financial literacy instruction.

Annual reports shall be made to the Massachusetts State Board of Education from every local district relating to the results of financial literacy standardized testing.

Financial literacy shall only be taught by certified teachers.

Teachers shall be certified to teach the financial literacy curriculum through attending a two day train the trainer seminar offered by the Consumer Bankruptcy Education Coalition.

Districts will be responsible for maintaining financial literacy certification records of applicable faculty for a period of no less than ten years.

Individual districts are permitted to develop relationships with private sector organizations and industry relating to matters of financial literacy, which can include consideration for the school or district.

Real life scenario and application should be used whenever possible. A budget amount shall be designated yearly for the development of financial literacy laboratory activities (i.e. closed circuit online banking simulation software, stock market simulation, etc).

A qualified designated agent shall be commissioned to develop a collection of data consistent with qualitative and quantitative scientific standards for the collection of post year 12 data collection to evaluate causality and efficacy of public school education efforts and real life financial health and decision making:

This is to be an opt in only program with consent of the graduate and/or parents if under eighteen years of age.

Updated consent will be obtained from the participant at the age of eighteen.

A monetary or post secondary educational scholarship incentive may be offered to solicit qualified participants (qualified as determined by the assigned agent conducting the data collection and analysis).

Data collection may include but is not limited to: credit worthiness, income information, general demographics, public debt, criminal records, credit reporting, other public records.

Participant consent shall be valid for a period of five years and should be renewed every five years thereafter.

Results of this data collection should be made cooperatively available for the benefit of the United States of America.

The administration specifics of this legislation shall be left to the Massachusetts State Board of Education or qualified designated agents pursuant to meeting the minimums laid out in this legislation. Tracking and proof of implementation record keeping is required for the purpose of State and Federal audits and should be retained for a period of ten years.

Massachusetts State standardized testing shall be altered to include assessment of financial literacy knowledge through out the K through 12 educational cycle. Results should be made available in an interstate cooperative with other State Boards of Education.

A board of members from key organizations and industries should be formed by the State Board of Education to inform upon the matters of curriculum relevancy is it relates to current trends and states of affairs in daily financial management and investing.

Re-evaluation of the efficacy of financial literacy curriculum should be commissioned by the Massachusetts State Board of Education no less than once every ten years.

Name:	District/Address:	Date Added:
Tim Wallis	28 Cameron Ave, Somerville, MA 02144	3/13/2020