A cautionary note to parents about shrugging off Financial Literacy and Investment courses in high school.

What is education for?  Why do we do it?  What is the end goal?  I’m not sure parents know these days.  I am a business department chair at a high school in the suburbs of Chicago.  I have taught for over 15 years in the field… and I have also been an entrepreneur, an account executive, a bartender, etc.  My goal for education is to make a difference while getting paid.  The end goal is to understand how to make money and live life to its fullest.

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Social media these days are spilling the bad parts of education.  Heck, my own blog is critical of the system.  I get it.  What I don’t get is when something is in place that works and is shrugged off by traditional parents.  Let me get to the point.  We teach financial literacy at our high school.  We also teach investments as an elective.  Because it is a state graduation requirement here in Illinois, people think it is a fluff course and try to “get it out of the way”.  Many parents at my school choose to place Freshman in financial literacy in summer school so they can get the “real classes” in to get into a better college or university.  This is where a huge problem occurs.

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That problem is that you are not making Financial Literacy an important choice in your son or daughters education.  You are putting AP courses over reality.   Social media people spew quotes like the following on a daily basis saying we as high school’s don’t actually teach people how to invest and manage money correctly:

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“Yet our schools don't teach students the 2 incomes that made Bill Gates a billionaire.. Instead schools program students to think the only path to success is to get indebted obtaining a college degree & to make a lot of income from "Earned Income" working a job.. After reading this, I challenge anyone to defend the school system in the comments.. Teaching just 1 income option out of 3 is not a fair & balanced system.. That's like a car salesman showing you a Mazda, but never showing you the Maserati, Lamborghini or Ferrari.. From Kindergarten through High School teachers just train students on how to drive that beat up "Mazda" until they turn 65 years old... Teachers don't train students on how to drive the "Ferrari", "Maserati" or "Lamborghini" (The other 2 income options)... Students deserve "Full Disclosure" of all 3 income options.. Billionaires earn their income from the 2 incomes that schools don't teach you.. Warren Buffett earns 1.5 Million PER DAY from Coca Cola Dividend Income, yet schools don't teach you how to earn Stock Dividend Income... Look at the billionaires on the Forbes 400 List.. All 400 of them earn their income from the 2 incomes that schools never teach you.. To learn more on how schools indoctrinate & program students please read the Best Selling book "Cashflow Quadrant" by Robert Kiyosaki.”

@wisdomtogrow on Instagram

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Actually the above is false.  We DO have courses that do teach 3 income options.  We actually DO recommend the books and do projects that train students to “drive the Maserati” as stated above.  Parents just don’t see the value in it.  There are two reasons I know this.

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1. Our parents are signing up their kids in the financial literacy course in the summer to make way for more AP courses. The parents still value the “go to college and get a job and work for 65 years to retire” process.  I know I don’t value that as a teacher.  I value teaching Passive, Earned, and Portfolio income.  This is why in many of our business classes, we teach them authentic subjects.  It is a priority.  Heck we even play the CASHFLOW game and work with our students to understand the power of getting out of the “rat race.”
2. $1 trillion plus in college debt out there. People still believe that the only way to making it is through college.  They believe that getting a degree will make them rich.  The HUGE debt out there is proof that that is simply not true.  I know previous students who have been looking for jobs after they get their degrees because they believed the hype that the college degree alone gets them a job.  The sales pitch is still working.  The return on investment is not.  That’s called ROI for you parents who don’t understand how to invest money.

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So what needs to happen here?  Well, @wisdomtogrow is telling you all that this stuff is important.  Very important.  And he is right.  All schools in Illinois and many other states mandate a graduation requirement in some sort of Financial Literacy.  Parents, STOP AVOIDING THIS CLASS!  How do you expect your kids to understand the financial system when you are not pushing for more of these types of classes!  The system is flawed.  YOU CAN MAKE THE DIFFERENCE.  DEMAND that all students take a financial literacy course.  DEMAND that your kids have to take an investment course.  Because if you don’t demand this, the college and university debt pipeline will continue and the lemmings it draws in will continue to grow debt and fall further and further away from success.  The first step is to stop complaining that schools don’t teach this stuff… WE DO… YOU are not choosing to learn about it in a serious manner.

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Should your school not teach these 3 types of income (Passive, Earned, Portfolio) in courses, show your voard memebers our website at http://www.oprfschoolofbusiness.com/classes.html Let your school board know these classes are VERY important to the success of your children and DEMAND them in your schools because I will tell you that AP courses don’t pay the bills.

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Just one more way to #disrupteducation