To better prepare children to make the right financial decisions once they enter "the real world," Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot is pushing legislation for financial literacy courses in Maryland's public schools.
While Franchot has been advocating the mandatory classes for the last several years, spokesperson Christine Feldmann said, he's currently ratcheting up the heat before the Maryland General Assembly's begins its 2012 session by creating an online petition.
Franchot is hoping to receive 10,000 signatures by the Jan. 11 legislative session. As of Tuesday evening, 4,007 signatures have been added to the petition.
"The comptroller has been an advocate of financial literacy for the last three years or so as the recession has really taken a hold of our economy," Feldmann said.
She explained that through experience in the community, viewing tax collection data and hearing stories from residents, Franchot realized the extent of people "not knowing the basics of finances."
"He's not naive enough to think if people had the course in high school there wouldn't be this recession," she said of the comptroller, "but he thinks it wouldn't be as drastic if people would have gotten more information before they went out into the real world."
To promote the cause and gain signatures, Franchot has put the petition online at ww.franchot.com and has stood outside various supermarkets and visited state fairs and festivals to promote the initiative.
"I never get someone saying they're opposed to it [the course]," Franchot said about the reception he's gotten so far on the proposed legislation. "It's a very popular issue with parents and students."
He describes the reform "pivotal" and something students "need to prosper after school."
The course, Franchot said, would be "a six-week standalone course in the 12th grade for every graduating senior" that would educate the students on how create a budget, get and maintain a credit card, as well as student loans, and "how to protect themselves from predatory financial offers that a lot of people learn to avoid through trial and error."
School systems in Allegany, Carroll, Charles and Talbot and counties are the only ones in the state that require financial courses.
Franchot said the financial literacy course would be ideal in Harford County Public Schools, describing Harford residents as having a reputation for being "frugal" and having a "business sense."
Virginia also has a similar mandatory financial course in its schools, Franchot said, one initiated a year, Virginia has had "a lot of success with it," he added.
As for the Maryland counties that have already implemented financial literacy courses, the comptroller said he has met students who graduated four or five years earlier and who have told him how valuable the class was in preparing them to become successful financially.
"No subject is more important in school than financial literacy," Franchot said. "Maybe learning how to read, but financial literacy is a close second. Right now, people are defenseless because they don't have the information. "