Ohio students will learn to manage money

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) _ Ohio high-school students soon will get lessons in money management along with the tougher math and science standards the Legislature approved last month.

Instruction in personal finance is set to begin in 2010 but could start earlier if new state Treasurer Rich Cordray has his way.

When he was Franklin County treasurer, Cordray tallied the trail of home foreclosures, delinquent property taxes and other forms of financial ruin that affect thousands of Ohio families.

He decided one way to help was to get children savvy in the ways of money before life had a chance to do it for them.

''I realized, as people came through and told us their stories, how many people simply got into trouble because they just weren't very good at managing their money and nobody had ever helped them,'' he said. ''They didn't get it in school. Some of them didn't learn it from their parents or learned very poor lessons from their parents.''

Cordray worked the last four years with Columbus Public Schools to educate high-schoolers about credit, savings and budgeting. He wants those lessons to go statewide sooner than required.

''There's no reason we should be missing out on another round of high-school students,'' Cordray told a volunteer committee of banking executives, educators, public officials and others he assembled to form a strategy for teaching personal finance. The committee held its first informal meeting last week.