You might think it is a daunting task to get teenagers excited about investing in a Roth Individual Retirement Account, but Mary Dahlby, a family and consumer sciences teacher at Urbandale High School, has found a way. An ardent believer in the earning potential of contributory investment accounts, Dahlby said it is easy to get students’ attention in her “Living Skills” class when she shows them how they can become a millionaire by the time they reach 50.

“It’s hard for students to picture retirement; it doesn’t have a lot of interest to them,” she said. “But if you can show them how a little sacrifice now can help them earn thousands of dollars later in life, students get excited.”

Dahlby is one of several experts who hope to generate excitement about financial literacy when they make presentations during the Iowa JumpStart Coalition’s Third Annual Personal Financial Literacy Conference. The Iowa coalition, a partnership of public and private agencies established in 2000, will host the statewide teacher-training event July 24-25 in Des Moines. Keynote speakers for the event are Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller and state Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald. Officials say the conference is one of several ways in which the non-profit group seeks to improve the personal financial literacy of Iowa’s young people.

“We work hard to deliver hands-on education to teachers,” said Sue McDonnell, chairwoman of the Iowa JumpStart Coalition and a family resource management specialist for Iowa State University Extension. “Teachers who have financial literacy training are more confident to teach it and they’ll do a better job of reaching students.”

McDonnell said more than 70 secondary-school teachers, including those who teach economics, business education, social studies, and family and consumer sciences, have registered to attend. The two-day conference will feature lectures, hands-on activities, idea-sharing and tours of financial-related sites in Des Moines. It will also provide teachers with up-to-date information, suggested teaching strategies and sample classroom materials on a wide range of topics, including credit cards, car buying, home ownership, saving, investing and consumer protection.

Graduate and staff development credit will be offered to those who attend, McDonnell said. Scholarships are available from the Iowa Credit Union Foundation to reimburse participants for part of the cost of the credit after completing the course requirements.

“It’s a good opportunity to learn how to improve teaching methods and to gain college credit,” McDonnell said.        Matt Fletcher, a math teacher by trade, also teaches a financial literacy class to students at Ballard Community School in Huxley. This will mark the third consecutive year he has attended the conference, which he says is a valuable resource.

“The curriculum I have is self-generated; there’s no textbook,” he said. “So I get a lot of my curriculum from this.”

Fletcher said it’s comforting knowing that there is a third party interested in helping him become a better teacher, which, ultimately, benefits the students.

“I think it’s great they’re just as interested in my students as I am,” he said of the JumpStart Coalition. “I wouldn’t be able to teach my class the way I do if it wasn’t for them.”

Though personal finance courses typically are elective offerings at most Iowa high schools, a JumpStart Coalition survey showed that 12 percent of high school seniors possess a credit card, 36 percent have an automated teller machine debit card and 18 percent have access to their parents’ credit cards. McDonnell said she is concerned that a growing number of teenagers are at risk of forming poor financial habits, which can create problems later in life as they incur debt, which can affect their ability to secure an apartment, a home loan, an auto loan, insurance or a job.

“The reality is that to be successful in life, it’s important to successful financially,” she said. “That’s why we want students to know they don’t have to be rich to manage their money and use credit wisely.

“The real issue is their failure to understand the difference between wants and needs. [They want] to have everything right away and they’re not willing to delay a purchase.”

McDonnell said making the successful completion of a financial literacy course a requirement for high school graduation might be one way to help deter financial problems. She said the coalition plans to conduct another survey in 2004, and it could make that recommendation to school administrators if the results indicate that Iowa students continue to score a failing grade for financial literacy.

“It is our hope that we would have every school offer a financial literacy or finance course before graduation,” McDonnell said. “Unfortunately, that’s not the situation now. We need to get curriculum directors to recognize that because we know that young people need the education.”

FAILING GRADE

A 2002 national JumpStart Coalition youth financial literacy survey found that Iowa high school students compared favorably to students in other states regarding financial literacy, but they still lack the basic skills needed to manage their money.   Iowa teens scored 57.3 percent on financial literacy tests administered to a random sample of students by the non-profit group, slightly higher than the national average of 50.2 percent. Though Iowa students registered a failing grade, two-thirds of the students tested said they felt secure about their ability to manage their finances.

As students continue to gain access to checking and savings accounts, credit cards and automated teller machine cards at a younger age, one state leader says it is critical to teach students fiscal responsibility.

“It’s important to reach young people before they buy a car or obtain a credit card, so they can make the best financial decisions,” said Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller. “We especially want to help young people establish good credit and learn how to manage their finances so they can avoid falling into heavy debt, which can haunt them for years.”