‘Checkbook math’ being phased out at many schools

WASHINGTON POST

Once a common course offering, consumer math is being phased out as school systems raise their expectations of how much math students should know when they graduate. Twenty or 30 years ago, Algebra I might have sufficed. Today, that course is regarded as an absolute minimum, a gateway to Advanced Placement study and college. Students routinely take it in middle school.

That leaves consumer math and other “checkbook math” classes relegated to a handful of schools, mostly in poor communities.

The gradual elimination from high schools of consumer math, which teaches students such skills as how to balance a checkbook and shop for a home loan, comes as lawmakers, corporate leaders and many parents are decrying the financial illiteracy of the young.