Enriching Education - National Financial Educators Council National Evaluation

The National Financial Educators Council has just released the first comprehensive national evaluation assessing state financial education requirements against the same baseline standards commonly expected in core academic areas.

The results are striking:

• Not a single state met parity with minimum core academic standards
• The national average alignment score was just 3.92%
• The best-performing state reached only 16.7%
• Only 2 out of 600 evaluated criteria across all 50 states met minimum expectations

The study examined 12 core criteria - including instructional time, educator qualifications, curriculum rigor, assessment, and accountability - and found that most mandates fall well short of minimum expectations.

These gaps can leave students underprepared for the money decisions they will face immediately after high school, including budgeting, debt management, credit, taxes, investing, and long-term planning.

Full state-by-state rankings and the complete report are available here. It also explains the scoring criteria and shows how each state performed against the standards.