For teachers

Standards alignment

What each part of this course covers against the six topics in the 2021 National Standards for Personal Financial Education, and what it does not. The gaps are stated as plainly as the coverage.

What this maps to, and how far

The framework is the 2021 National Standards for Personal Financial Education, co-published by the Council for Economic Education and the Jump$tart Coalition. Its six topics are Earning Income, Spending, Saving, Investing, Managing Credit and Managing Risk.

This maps at topic level and stops there. It does not cite benchmark numbers. The six topic names were checked against published sources; the benchmark numbering was not, and an invented citation on a page like this is worse than no citation, because it gets pasted into a pacing guide and only fails when somebody checks it. If your department needs that level of detail, read this mapping next to the standards document, which is a free download.

At a glance

A filled circle means the topic is a main subject of that part. An open circle means it is touched with real content but not taught end to end. A dot means it does not appear.

Or select it yourself

Part by part

What each part actually does, and which topic that serves. Written so a head of department can check the claim against the page rather than take it on trust.

Where this course will not satisfy a standard on its own

Four of the six topics are covered thoroughly and the other two stop short in ways worth knowing before you plan a unit around them. None of that is visible from a coverage table alone.

  • Managing Risk is now taught rather than only charged. Module 4 covers what a premium buys, the deductible trade with a break-even in claims, an emergency fund as self-insurance, and the employer share of health cover. The simulation charges insurance every year, prices it by household, and models long-term care from published figures, and the student chooses a health plan from three levels. What is still absent: comparing named policies, copays and networks, and disability cover, which was built and then removed because every figure in it was invented.
  • Managing Credit stops before the paperwork. Debts are held at their own rates and repaid on a strategy the student sets, which covers the arithmetic well. Credit scores, credit reports, bankruptcy and consumer credit law are not covered at all.
  • Earning Income stops before the forms. Pay, taxes taken from pay, promotion, job loss and retirement income are all modeled. Filling in a W-4, reading a pay stub line by line, and filing a return are not.
  • Spending is covered as decision making, not as consumer skills. Weighing alternatives and reading a claim are throughout. Comparison shopping, warranties, contracts and returns are not.

The glossary lists the specific terms this course never uses, checked by searching every page rather than from memory.