“If Joe maxes out and borrows $20000 on a credit card, and makes $20 a payment each month, how many months will it take Joe to pay off his credit card debt, assuming he doesn’t borrow any more money from it and there is no interest charges?”
Of course, I have a feeling that sort of math question wouldn’t be allowed, because it would be flagged as borderline “family values” that shouldn’t be taught in a public school math class…
I can’t speak to the People’s Republic of CA, but when I went to HS in small-town NJ in the 90s, we had interest-amortization and things like that in high school calculus. Or maybe it was our economics class, can’t remember, but no one objected…
We also had shop, home-ec, and basic electronic theory classes, the latter taught by a retired radio engineer from Bell Labs.[/quote]
Um, I’m not even really worried about Calculus or amortization, or heck even compound interest.
How just about a very simple lesson that if you Borrow $X to buy crap that doesn’t generate income, and make $X/1000 payments each month, you become a debt slave bitch-boy for Y years until it’s paid off….
Simple elementary school math, that could be taught to just about any elementary school kid, from honors level to remedial and might actually help out when Joe is old enough to use his credit card….
Again, I’m all gay rights, adoptions, etc,etc. And that’s all fine and dandy. But look at the way a lot of people in this country handle their finances. Heck, look at how our government handles its finances.. You think *maybe* our educators would get a clue on what sort education crisis we have in this country? Or is the truth, they aren’t qualified to teach it because they suck at managing their own finances as well?
