I went to 9th and 10th grade at Brother Rice, then my family moved to Minnesota in 1977 and I attended 11th and 12th grade at Minnetonka High School. “Escaped” just means it never came up as an option.

I was heavy in Math and Science since I wanted to go into Engineering, and I did get my BSEE from the University of Minnesota, before going to Hamline Law School so I could become a patent attorney.

Of course I learned how to budget eventually – but I do wish I had learned more about financial matters in high school. Having two years of college calculus (through vector calculus) and being somewhat ignorant of basic budgeting is weird. Maybe switching schools halfway through high school was a drawback.

Maybe my parents should have taught me – but it never came up.

citizenship that includes civics consistent with section 120B.02, subdivision 3;
</blockquote

I shudder to think of the guidelines for “citizenship’’ the people behind this stuff would dream up.

(7) the arts, for which statewide or locally developed academic standards apply, as determined by the school district. Public elementary and middle schools must offer at least three and require at least two of the following four arts areas: dance; music; theater; and visual arts. Public high schools must offer at least three and require at least one of the following five arts areas: media arts; dance; music; theater; and visual arts.

Same comment here. It’s not a good idea to have clowns who don’t value education dictating what should be included in local education.

law. But I escaped high school without any economics or financial education. Two years of high school in Michigan and two years in Minnesota.

Perhaps if you hadn’t viewed schooling as something to ‘’escape’’.

But it is odd there were no offerings in economics: you’re only a touch younger than I am an, as I stated, we had to take two semesters of economics, with a fair bit of finance and budgeting involved. We also had available [not mandatory, but I took it] a two-semester American history sequence: the first semester covered history using material from American historians and records, the second covered the same material using European sources. Not the greatest amount of diversity, but pretty good given what was available in the early 70s and, I think, quite the feat for a high school in a town of under 5000 people.

120B.021 REQUIRED ACADEMIC STANDARDS.
§Subdivision 1.Required academic standards. (a) The following subject areas are required for statewide accountability:
(1) language arts;

(2) mathematics;

(3) science;

(4) social studies, including history, geography, economics, and government and citizenship that includes civics consistent with section 120B.02, subdivision 3;

(5) physical education;

(6) health, for which locally developed academic standards apply; and

(7) the arts, for which statewide or locally developed academic standards apply, as determined by the school district. Public elementary and middle schools must offer at least three and require at least two of the following four arts areas: dance; music; theater; and visual arts. Public high schools must offer at least three and require at least one of the following five arts areas: media arts; dance; music; theater; and visual arts.

Here is a link to the full law (it is long):

https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/120B.021

I don’t know if it is a good idea to add more subjects to the law. But I escaped high school without any economics or financial education. Two years of high school in Michigan and two years in Minnesota.

I do wish I had learned how to budget in high school. As I have walked through life I have been surprised by how much I didn’t know about finances and had to learn by myself. It would be nice if they taught kids about loans, credit cards, budgeting, home ownership and mortgages (and avoiding PMI if possible), investing, retirement planning, and the ins and outs of medicare and social security. Of course, most kids would think these topics have nothing to do with them and would tune out (I probably would have). But the closer I get to 65 the more research I seem to have to do for social security and medicare. It is not easy.

People don’t have financial woes because they did not learn about interest rates in high school. They have financial woes because usury interest rates are allowed by our representative government. People don’t get ripped off by charlatans or sold bad mortgages because they did not take a financial literacy class in high school. These things happen to them because of regulatory creep, allowed by our elected representatives. People don’t live hand to mouth, barely, and have their finances fall apart over the littlest thing because they did not take financial literacy in high school. These thing happen because our minimum wage standard is laughable, our tax burden is unfairly distributed, and there is very little done in our society to develop job security. These are all failures of our legislative bodies. People don’t have health care related financial disaster because they did not take a financial literacy class in high school. This happens to them because our legislative bodies can’t modernize our health delivery system

Yup. Back in the dark ages when I was in high school we had to take two semesters of economics: learned taxes, basic financial mathematics, etc, and none of that would have helped one bit if I’d had a serious injury or illness while I was an undergrad or grad student. And those years were the 70s/early 80s. Things have gotten monumentally worse.

Stop blaming the teachers, stop blaming the schools, stop blaming the kids. They are the victims, not the perpetrators of all that cause personal financial disaster.

The blame won’t stop. As we’ve seen in Florida as DeSantis continues his march to one-man authoritarian rule, lying and blaming education for no end of ills pays off quite well. The only hope we have is that followers of the right’s leaders stop believing those lies — and evidence is strong that we won’t get that lucky any time soon.