New Jersey Coalition for Financial Education 2009 Annual Report:

 

2009 saw the New Jersey State Board of Education adopt revised Core Curriculum Content Standards that created Personal Finance as a stand-alone content area (9.2).  The Board also revised New Jersey’s high school graduation requirements that will now provide for every high school student, beginning with the freshman class of 2010, to take a 2.5 credit (half-year) course in Personal Finance at some point during their high school career.  The New Jersey State Legislature additionally passed a bill establishing a three-year pilot program in six New Jersey High Schools to experiment with a full year (5.0 credit) Personal Finance Course.  The New Jersey Coalition for Financial Education (NJCFE) in collaboration with the New Jersey Department of Education provided two state-wide conferences and 30 educator training sessions across the state to prepare more than 2,000 teachers, school administrators and community based organizations for implementation of these new requirements.

 

NJCFE has also established outreach initiatives in both the northern and southern regions of the state, including the opening of a Branch Office at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, to better serve the growing financial education needs of NJ’s school districts.  These two initiatives will enable the Coalition to more intensely service 130+ schools, districts, and educationally related associations or 90,000 + students (pre-k to 12) and 24,000+ educators.  Particular assistance was provided in 2009 to educators of special needs students and urban districts - funding from CITI was instrumental in this endeavor.  NJCFE also embarked on a Parental Outreach Project to further enhance the impact of financial literacy to NJ students and families.  NJCFE has entered into an agreement with Wells Fargo and the Council on Economic Education to conduct a district-wide roll-out of the “Hands-on Banking” Curriculum in the Atlantic City School District.  Additional collaborative relationships were established with nationally recognized free and fee-based curriculum providers such as the FDIC, MoneySkills, Junior Achievement, NEFE, WI$E, The Stock Market Game and more to provide Curriculum Showcases for educators throughout the state.  NJCFE has established a committee composed of representatives from NJ institutions of higher education, to work on institutionalizing pre-service personal finance programming for all future NJ teachers before their graduation and entrance into the profession.  NJCFE continued its long standing partnership with the New Jersey Education Association in 2009 and its on-going support has been a tremendous asset.  NJCFE continued its commitment to the America Saves Program and ran numerous successful events during NJSAVES week (February 2009) and throughout the year.  Coalition members such as PNC Bank and the IRS partnered with the NJSAVES Program to target the City of Newark in 2009.  A Financial Education Awards Program was premiered in 2009 and NJCFE’s first Lifetime Achievement Award was named after and presented to Muriel F. Siebert, whose Foundation has been providing support to NJCFE through the training of NJ educators in that Foundation’s personal finance curriculum.  NJCFE partner – Junior Achievement of New Jersey – in collaboration with Capitol One – brought the first Mobile Finance Park to New Jersey in in 2009 and served  6 school districts and 808 students through the related financial education curriculum and on-site culminating experience.  Finally, NJCFE has begun an initiative of outreach to all 21 NJ Workforce Investment Boards (WIBS) to better serve out-of-school youth and adult education students who have not as yet received their high school diplomas.