Published December 2004

Credit Union League
pushes for financial literacy

By John Wolcott
SCBJ Editor

Too many high school students can’t balance their checkbooks, plan their financial future or understand how to handle credit, but that’s about to change.

Financial literacy education programs will begin soon in Washington’s K-12 schools, thanks to successful legislative efforts last spring by the Washington Credit Union League.

Representing the state’s 150 not-for-profit credit unions, including 18 providing member services in Snohomish County, the league’s credit union CEOs, employees and members testified in Olympia in support of their proposed new education law (SHB 2455).

Those efforts also won the WCUL the Credit Union National Association’s highest award, the Desjardins Youth Financial Education Award.

“Our board of directors understands that society benefits from teaching the next generation of consumers how to protect themselves from bankruptcy, predatory lending, identity theft and poor credit,” said John Annaloro, WCUL’s president and chief executive.

Dan Mica, president and chief executive of CUNA, said, “Credit unions’ willingness to take up the challenges of giving youth the tools they need to become financially self-sufficient … demonstrate more than ever that the credit union movement refuses to let the issue of youth financial literacy disappear.”

The award, announced in September, involved much more than the legislative effort, including such activities as:

• Training in financial literacy for 150 credit union professionals at three major events.
• A sell-out Financial Fun Fling teacher training session for 47 teachers and 25 credit union staff.
• A grant awarded from the Washington Credit Union Foundation to pay teachers from across the state for their career training sessions.
• Forming partnerships with Jumpstart Washington, the Office of Public Instruction, Office of the Attorney General, the Better Business Bureau, the state’s Department of Financial Institutions and two legislators, Sen. Karen Keiser and Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos.

“When the Credit Union League and other partners testified … one high school student told legislators that the kids he went to school with didn’t know how to balance a checkbook. That’s exactly why the WCUL worked to pass that legislation and to identify curriculum for implementing in our schools,” said Jamie Chase, director of public relations and communications for the league.

A 2002 study by Jumpstart Washington, a group that tests for financial literacy, showed that high school seniors could correctly answer only 50 percent of the exam’s questions. Not bad scores, perhaps, since average Americans in the work force who were tested could only answer 45 percent of the financial literacy questions correctly.

That’s why the league believes financial literacy for students will not only help them for the rest of their lives but also improve the financial education of Americans in general, WCUL literature contends.

National surveys have shown that four out of 10 Americans questioned admit they are “living beyond their means, primarily because of their misuse and misunderstanding of credit,” and that personal bankruptcies more than doubled between 1990 and 2000.

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