I reached out to our FinLit Fanatics group recently requesting names of administrators who "get it" when it comes to financial education. I heard from a teacher at Lomira High School (WI) who recommended her principal, Deb Janke, who has been "super supportive in my quest of making our financial literacy courses effective!" In this podcast, Deb shares the process her school went through to ensure that all students took a personal finance course before they graduated as well as the benefits that she has seen in her school and the community. She also provides some valuable tips for teachers interested in sitting down with their principal to advocate for finance education. Enjoy! 

Comments:

Details:

• 0:00~1:29 Introduction
• 1:29~3:49 Arun’s background
• 3:49~4:40 Life as a 6th-grade teacher
• 4:40~8:05 Bringing money into the classroom
• 8:05~9:30 Transition to bond trading
• 9:30~12:17 Habits picked up from mentors
• 12:17~14:56 The complexities of the bond market
• 14:56~18:33 Arun’s entrepreneurial journey
• 18:33~20:16 Using AI to optimize financial needs
• 20:16~20:43 A word from NGPF
• 20:43~25:34 Virtual assistants and what they can do
• 25:34~27:58 Robo-investors and 401(k)s
• 27:58~30:06 History of AI in finance
• 30:06~32:26 Establishing trust as a startup
• 32:26~34:40 What consumers can do with starbutter today
• 34:40~36:04 Time it takes to find a credit card
• 36:04~40:55 The future of starbutter and finance
• 40:55~42:30 Conclusion

Resources mentioned:

• starbutter
• Bank of America - Erica

Quotes:

• “I love virtual assistants because it can do 60, 70, 80 percent of the work humans do at the highest level, like the best human that does it, and we can just have one virtual assistant assisting millions of people.”
• “What we found with virtual assistants is that when you buy a product it's justifying with data why they made the suggestion.”
• “[For a consumer to find a credit card] it takes anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes but our agent can get really good recommendations under 5 minutes, often under 2 minutes.”

Driven to serve others by educating them to become financially capable, Marcy Reyes has found several ways to accomplish this mission. She teaches at Rhode Island College while also leading a non-profit that she founded to support high school students. Oh, all this while holding down a full-time job with a health insurer. She is clearly someone motivated to serve others by teaching them valuable skills about managing their money. In this podcast, you will hear Marcy share her story and the reasons why she is so passionate about  financial education, the path from the vision to the reality of starting a non-profit and where she wants to take the FLY organization in the future. With Marcy at the helm, they are sure to soar! Enjoy! 

It was fun checking in with Justin Draeger, who leads the largest association supporting college financial aid officers. Justin last appeared on the podcast about three years which meant we had a lot of catching up to do. Listen to Justin describe what has changed as well as what hasn't in that interval. He discusses innovation in higher ed, the push for more transparency in award letters and the current regulatory environment in the highly regulated financial aid field. Enjoy!

From PC Magazine to CNET to Yahoo to Guitar Hero to Chegg, Dan Rosensweig has had a fascinating front-row seat in seeing (and sometimes driving) the paradigm shifts in tech as it has evolved from the PC to the Internet to the cloud. In this wide-ranging and fast-paced conversation, Dan shares his thinking behind leaving Guitar Hero to join a then simple textbook rental company (Saying ‘hey I am the CEO of guitar hero’ then going to say ‘i rent textbooks’... you can imagine how that went in the ‘coolness’ category). He also describes how he has completely transformed and expanded Chegg's digital offerings to, in his words, "realign the education system" to meet the needs of the students they serve. Enjoy!  

Can you imagine a better panel to discuss financial education in schools than NGPF’s Co-Founder Jessica Endlich, Jump$tart's President and CEO Laura Levine, , and Champlain College’s Director of Financial Literacy John Pelletier? They recently appeared on the NPR 1A podcast where the topics ranged from how personal finance should be taught in schools to the investment in professional development required to run effective programs to how this coursework can be used to address equity issues. Enjoy! 

States legislators and education leaders make decisions to emphasize financial education but then what? Anyone experienced in education or business, for that matter, knows that success requires keen attention to detail when it comes to implementation. Debbie Pierce from Economic Literacy Colorado and Alyssa Wooten from the Colorado Dept. of Education have teamed up to both increase access and improve the personal finance instruction taught in Colorado schools. Listen as they share their plans, the lessons they have learned along the way and what makes for a successful implementation plan. Enjoy! 

Renee Wasinger can be described as many things, most notably as an enterprising, enthusiastic, and energetic educator! If you visited her classroom in Olathe, Kansas, you no doubt would see her TBWA philosophy in action: Teaching By Walking Around.  Whether it's checking in with her students on their projects, creating a help center to build interest at her high school or pushing for universal access to personal finance, Renee's clearly demonstrates her passion for helping students everyday. As a store operations leader at Wal-Mart, she gained valuable insights about the skills her students will need to succeed in the "real world" and she makes sure they leave her classroom with those skills. Enjoy!

Once an educator, always an educator. Jim Wasserman took a page from his own book—literally!—and now he’s happily living his “third life” la buena vida with his wife (and investment guru) Jiab in Seville, Spain. This renaissance man found a way to jazz up his economics class and boy has he amassed quite the collection of student stories over the years. Hear Jim dive into how his classroom experience shaped his life and be inspired to go back to your classroom with some fresh new ideas. Enjoy!