On Friday, July 31, the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions (DFI) and the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) announced 10 grants totaling more than $140,000 have been awarded to schools across Wisconsin to enhance personal finance education. Grant recipients were selected out of a field of 28 applicants by the Governor’s Council on Financial Literacy.
“These grants will help thousands of students broaden their personal financial knowledge and become better prepared to make sound financial decisions as adults,” said DFI Secretary Kathy Blumenfeld. “Financial literacy is an important life skill that helps students take control of their financial future. This program reinforces our continued commitment to educating Wisconsin’s K-12 students about personal financial matters.”
Funded by DFI, the Financial Literacy Innovation Grant Program was open to Wisconsin’s K-12 public and private schools and is a collaborative effort between the Governor’s Council on Financial Literacy, DFI, and DPI. The grants are designed to help teachers adopt and implement Wisconsin’s standards on personal financial literacy in their classrooms and in partnership with their communities.
State Superintendent Carolyn Stanford Taylor adopted new personal financial literacy standards earlier this year. The standards are intended to help schools and educators at all grade levels to develop programs that provide the knowledge and skills to establish sound financial habits.
“Thank you to our educators for taking the time to craft applications aimed at helping their students learn financial literacy,” Stanford Taylor said. “This collaborative grant program is yet another resource and benefit to educators looking to implement essential financial courses into their programming aligned with the new state standards.”
DPI conducted the initial review of the 28 applicants from throughout the state, and then the Governor’s Council on Financial Literacy made the final recommendations. The grant program is designed to support the efforts of individual teachers and school districts to begin innovative and sustainable financial literacy programs and events, with a specific emphasis on student loan debt.
Funding for the grant program was provided by DFI through settlement dollars designated for financial literacy education.