OBTA—An Association for Business Technology Educators is committed to keeping its members informed of legislation that affects the instruction of business education topics to students in Ohio schools. A recent introduction in the Ohio House of Representatives that presents concern is House Bill 383 (Link: https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislation/legislation-summary?id=GA131-HB-383).
While instruction of economics and financial literacy is imperative to ensure that today’s young people are adequately educated in these critical areas, concerns exist in the language of House Bill 383. The first concern is that the requirement set forth by this Bill is set at one-half unit – according to language set forth in the Bill, one-half unit of instruction is defined as “a minimum of sixty hours of course instruction.” This requirement limits the exposure of critical economic and financial literacy components and puts school district administration in the position of rearranging the academic requirements in such a fashion that, in many cases, only the minimum requirement can be effectively met.
A second concern is that the Bill limits the instruction of economic and financial literacy concepts to the high school social studies curriculum. A 2010 study conducted by The Ohio State University College of Education and Human Ecology (Link: https://ehe.osu.edu/downloads/communications/innovation-link-volume-4.pdf) found that only 33% of financial literacy curriculum is being taught by licensed business educators – the remaining 67% is being taught by Family and Consumer Sciences, Social Sciences, Mathematics, Science, Technology, Agriculture, or other content areas. A 2009 article published by the National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE) (Link: http://www.nefe.org/press-room/news/uw-madison-releases-study-on-teachers-capability.aspx) noted that “only 37 percent of K-12 teachers had taken a college course offering personal finance content” and “relatively few teachers reported feeling ‘very competent’ in any of the six topic areas” commonly associated with financial literacy education: income and careers, planning and money management, credit and debt, financial responsibility and decision making, saving and investing, and risk management and insurance.
Therefore, not as business educators, but as informed citizens concerned about the proper delivery of economic and financial literacy education, it is important that we reach out to our state representatives, especially the sponsors and co-sponsors of House Bill 383. Their contact information is presented here:
PRIMARY SPONSORS:
The Honorable Christina Hagan
Ohio District 50
77 South High Street, 13th Floor
Columbus, OH 43215
Contact
The Honorable Robert McColley
Ohio District 81
77 South High Street, 11th Floor
Columbus, OH 43215
Contact
CO-SPONSORS:
The Honorable Debbie Phillips
Ohio District 94
77 South High Street, 10th Floor
Columbus, OH 43215
Contact
The Honorable Ron Young
Ohio District 61
77 South High Street, 13th Floor
Columbus, OH 43215
Contact
The Honorable Doug Green
Ohio District 66
77 South High Street, 13th Floor
Columbus, OH 43215
Contact
The Honorable Bob D. Hackett
Ohio District 74
77 South High Street, 11th Floor
Columbus, OH 43215
Contact
Please address your personal letters to these state representatives at your earliest convenience to express your concern as a citizen of the state of Ohio with the language of this Bill and how passage of such a Bill could negatively affect the critical learning in the areas of economics and financial literacy of the young people of Ohio.