TC to honor Lauran and Justin Tuck for financial literacy leadership and host expert panel on April 21

On April 21^st, Teachers College will celebrate the national expansion of its highly regarded Cowin Financial Literacy Program, a professional development program for high school teachers that improves the quality of financial literacy education in high schools nationwide.

The event will take place from 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. in TC’s Cowin Auditorium. Click here to register.

Read Reuters interview with Justin Tuck on financial literacy 

At the event, being held during Financial Literacy Month, TC will present former New York Giant and Notre Dame football great Justin Tuck and his wife, Lauran, with the Joyce Berger Cowin Champions Award for Financial Literacy Advocacy, Education and Leadership in recognition of their commitment to educating young people about personal finance through their foundation Tuck’s R.U.S.H. for Literacy. The Tucks will give the event’s keynote address.

An all-star panel of financial experts will discuss the critical need for effective financial education in U.S. schools. Beth Kobliner, author of the New York Times bestseller Get a Financial Life, will moderate a panel consisting of Dan Kadlec, a contributor to TIME and Money; Carol Loomis, a retired senior editor-at-large at Fortune; Anand Marri, Associate Professor of Social Studies & Education at TC and the Director of the Cowin Financial Literacy Program; and Stacey Tisdale, a senior editor for personal finance at Black Enterprise.

As college costs, debt and defaults reach all-time highs, the event will showcase the Cowin Financial Literacy Program as a game-changer in secondary education. Named for its benefactor and guiding spirit, TC Trustee Joyce B. Cowin (M.A. ’52), the program gives teachers basic financial literacy tools to pass on to their students and use themselves.  Instruction and materials are designed to bring experiential learning about personal finance into classrooms. The curriculum is available nationwide for free download.

Joyce Cowin, who created in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, wants everyone to become “economic citizens.” “Every person past the ninth grade should have knowledge of money,” she says, “how to finance a college education, how to ensure that expenses don’t exceed income, how to monitor a credit card and interest . . . and how much to pay for rent and what a mortgage is. We need to educate the next generation.”

The program uses a case-study model, popularized at Harvard Business School and adapted to the high school classroom, to present students with financial dilemmas that are inherently compelling. For example, in one case study, a young woman wants to avoid credit card debt but still cash in on badly-needed air travel miles. In another, an elite professional athlete needs to plan for life after his playing days are over. Through these cases, students learn to work toward solutions by evaluating competing and conflicting points of view.

“Most teachers are afraid of economic topics, period,” observed Anand Marri, the director of the Cowin program. “Fewer than 20 percent of teachers have taken more than one economics course in their undergraduate days. They must realize now that they don’t have to have all the answers—they just need to know what questions to ask.”

Teachers attending the event will receive a $50.00 credit toward educational supplies, two professional development credits, and a bound book of case studies. The first 100 teachers to register at the event will also receive an autographed copy of Beth Kobliner’s New York Times bestseller, Get a Financial Life.®

Learn more from the creators of the program, featured in The Wall Street Journal and Forbes.

Published Monday, Apr 18, 2016