WWU event will tackle role schools play in promoting financial literacy
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- WWU hosts July symposium joining educators, policymakers on financial literacy.
- Washington lawmakers, task forces weigh adding financial education to curricula.
- Teachers cite training, funding, and thoughtful rollout as key implementation needs.
Each year Western Washington University gathers teachers, policymakers and stakeholders for the the Washington Economics Symposium — a series of panels and workshops aimed at increasing students’ financial literacy. This year’s event is scheduled for July 29 at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Attendees can join two tracks — one for K-12 teachers and another for business and policy experts. Adam Wright, associate professor of economics at WWU and organizer of the symposium, said the idea is to bring together industry professionals that otherwise work separately. Given trends in financial behaviors, Wright said there is a need for financial education and events like the symposium.
“Right now, there’s a record amount of debt held by households. The most recent report in the first quarter of 2025 that came out of the New York Federal reserve was $18.2 trillion. $1.1 trillion of that was credit card debt,” Wright said. “This used to not be such a big issue. Since we started measuring this in the 1930s, you were basically guaranteed to do better than your parents.”
Washington is one of nine states in the U.S. that does not require high school students to take a personal finance or economics course, and there are ongoing efforts to change that. The Washington State Board of Education has gathered a task force to update high school graduation requirements, and one of their focuses is financial literacy. The team’s 30 members plan to submit a legislative proposal updating requirements in the 2027 legislative session. The Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction has a branch called the Financial Education Public-Private Partnership, which provides training and grants to teachers looking to incorporate financial literacy into their classrooms.
There’s been past legislative movement, too. During the most recent legislative session earlier this year, two bills that would have made financial education a high school graduation requirement — HB 1285 and SB 5080 — never made it out of committee. Christy Johnson, a moderator for the symposium and CEO of consulting firm Artemis Connection, said there’s been teacher union opposition to the bills.
“The teachers union has a lot of influence, and they feel like often additional requirements like personal finance are unfunded mandates. They’re not getting the right kind of support that they need in order to be able to offer it,” Johnson said. “They don’t want to see additional requirements added to teachers’ plates without adequate training, support or additional compensation.”
High school teacher Kiera O’Brien, a member of the Vancouver Education Association and Future Ready Task Force, did not mention unfunded mandates as a concern. Rather, she said making the shift in requirements comprehensive is the primary concern for teachers.
“It would be a little bit hasty to put in a financial literacy requirement and then do the future ready task force and reimagining because really that portion should be part of the pie,” O’Brien said. “A hasty push out of something — we already know that can be disastrous on the level of doing that across an entire state and huge student populations, right? So I think the idea is to be thoughtful, do the deep work that’s necessary.”
Just because financial education isn’t mandated doesn’t necessarily mean students aren’t receiving that education. Last year teacher-created credit union WECU offered students interactive financial training. Bellingham Public schools is also “exploring adding a high-school level financial education course” according to Dana Smith, assistant director of communications at Bellingham Public Schools.
“It is true that it can feel frustrating to educators when lawmakers introduce what is known as an ‘unfunded mandate,’ meaning that a new requirement is introduced without attention to funding or personnel to implement it,” Smith said in an email to The Herald. “That said, we agree that financial literacy is a very important subject for students, providing practical knowledge and skills that will help launch them into their post-high school plans.”
Symposium organizer Wright said he’d like the symposium to contribute to the ongoing dialogue about graduation requirements in Washington.
“It would be great to have a financial education requirement, but we don’t want to rush things such that we get it wrong. I would rather we take our time, get it right,” he said.
This story was originally published July 23, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
