Dollars and sense for teens
Waukesha West to use youth magazine to teach finance
When teacher Ginger Laveau starts a money management unit at Waukesha West High School this fall she'll use a new money and lifestyle magazine aimed at inspiring teens to save regularly and use credit wisely.
The importance of personal financial literacy was highlighted when the state released academic standards for the subject last year. Yet tools to liven up the mundane material aren't always easy to find.
Laveau, who teaches personal financial planning, has been known to reward West students with a 100 Grand candy bar if they set up a real certificate of deposit.
One of the first Brass articles she has flagged for discussion is called "Destination: Debt Free."
"We've seen a big increase in the number of students taking (personal financial planning); five years ago we only had one or two sections and now we have three or four sections," Laveau said.
The student edition of Brass magazine, a 450,000 circulation publication whose largest readership is made up of younger members of credit unions, landed in all of Wisconsin's 603 public high schools in early September thanks to a partnership with the Wisconsin Credit Union League and the Department of Public Instruction.
"It's clear from state testing that our young people are falling woefully short of knowing financial basics," said Brett Thompson, president and CEO of the Wisconsin Credit Union League, the trade association for the state's 265 credit unions. "With no statewide solution to the problem, we wanted to give circulating this magazine a try," he said.
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The quarterly magazine's August content includes articles about how the merging of Sirius and XM radio will affect stocks, how a 25-year-old New Orleans evacuee musician launched and maintained his jazz career, and why investing in CDs is a good deal for high schoolers.
Launched in 2003, Brass has a separate edition that some credit unions make available in bulk to their younger members. When a New York high school teacher requested classroom copies of the publication, Brass Media devised a student edition written mostly by teens and young adults.
In 2006, the New York Credit Union Foundation provided funding for the magazine to reach all of that state's high schools.
The Wisconsin Credit Union League followed suit this year, and 24-year-old Brass founder and CEO Bryan Sims said plans are in the works to extend the student program to other states.
Sims launched the magazine out of his Oregon State dorm room in 2003 with the help of his father, Steve, who was working out of their garage in Corvalis, Ore. The student edition is now the latest focus.
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"We started making lesson plans for the Web site that would go along with each issue, and the first person I brought on to work on that was my former fifth-grade teacher," Sims said. "Our goal is to have a teacher in New York who is sharing information with a teacher in Wisconsin about how to use Brass in the classroom."
Sims said that curriculum guides on the magazine's teacher resource center online incorporate Wisconsin's academic financial literacy standards. An online student resource center offers a search tool for credit union scholarships.
Sally Osenga, a business teacher at Indian Trail Academy in Kenosha, received her first box of Brass magazines several weeks ago. She said she liked that while teachers are encouraged to blog about teaching financial literacy, students have been encouraged to submit articles to the magazine.
"Any kind of push in the state toward more financial literacy resources for high school students is helpful," she said.