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E U R O P E A N L E A G U E F O R M I D D L E L E V E L E D U C A T I O N schools, high schools and colleges without a single formal lesson on how to make life’s biggest purchase. We could say the same for income taxes, stocks, bonds, credit cards, real-estate investing, saving for the future and staying out of debt.  In school, we don’t learn that banks, credit card companies and investment firms put their interests first; we’re a distant second.   For example, credit card companies want nothing more than millions of clients who pay the minimum every month.  U.S. credit card debts are at an all-time high. Americans had $1.021 trillion in outstanding revolving credit in June 2017. Many high-salaried, “educated” people pay credit card interest every month.    Banks often loan us more money than they should.  Investment firms, also, aren’t all created equal.  Most of them put their shareholders first. Nonprofit investment firms don’t do that.  What’s that?  You didn’t know there’s such a thing as an investment firm that doesn’t have to satisfy private owners or stock market shareholders?  If that’s the case, your education system has cost you a lot of money.   By now, you might be squirming in your seat.  But we can move school programs from awkward to awesome.  We just need to introduce these topics in school– with the passion it deserves.     I taught personal finance at an American School in Singapore.  It was an elective course, so students didn’t have to take it. The school started to offer the course in 2011.  Enough students enrolled to create two classes.  The following year, interest doubled.  I taught four classes.  One year later, my course load jumped to six classes. The school had strict class size limits. But every semester, parents and students begged that we break that rule for the personal finance class.  My class was stuffed.  I had to bring in extra desks.     Why The Song “Don’t Stay In School” Went Completely Viral by Andrew Hallam   David Brown ruffled a lot of feathers when he released the youtube hit, Don’t Stay In School.  In the video, he’s seen strolling through a corridor of trees.  His long brown hair has a dyed streak of red.   It’s easy to dismiss him as an attention-seeking punk: a high school dropout, perhaps, who makes a living singing songs.  But two things are worth noting. First, David Brown is a university graduate.  He’s impressively articulate.  Second, his video went viral for a reason.  Deep down, people knew the guy was right.   Let’s clarify his message.  He wasn’t saying kids should drop out of school. Instead, he says curriculum offerings have some backward priorities.  Ask educators the purpose of their craft.  Most will say they’re teaching the next generation to be thoughtful, responsible, contributing members of society.    But plenty of essential content, says Brown, doesn’t get taught in schools.  He lists personal finance among it. Not every adult will use the skills they learn in a poetry unit, algebra class, chemistry class or biology class.  In fact, most of them never will. But every adult manages money.   Brian Stroman is a school superintendent in Bloomburg, Texas.  His school district includes financial lessons at the middle school and high school levels. “In my opinion,” he says, “An understanding of money is the most important thing for students to graduate with.  You spend your whole life dealing with money.”   Most of us have to eventually get a mortgage.  Yet, students can graduate from most middle I’ve long felt every student, starting in elementary school, should learn integrated financial lessons. 7