ALASKA
GRADE
F
SUMMARY OF GRADE
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Significant Accomplishments: Financial Education website
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Needs Improvement: Needs to require high school stand-alone personal finance course and implement grade-specific K-8 financial literacy standards
AN IN-DEPTH LOOK
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Alaska fails to instruct its students in financial literacy. There is no required personal finance course, nor is financial literacy embedded in K-12 standards. Graduating students must have earned three Social Studies credits, but there is no distinction for what those credits must include. Furthermore, there has not been any legislation introduced lately to mandate that financial literacy be taught in Alaska’s public schools.
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Despite excluding financial literacy in any standards or curriculum, the Alaska Department of Education & Early Development website includes Financial Education Materials and Sample Lesson Plans for teachers by linking sources from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy.
Alaska receives an “F” for not ensuring any financial literacy instruction for its students. In order to improve its grade to an “A,” Alaska needs to ensure financial literacy instruction from Grades K-12 through implementing grade-specific K-8 financial literacy standards and requiring a high school stand-alone course.