Why did God create economists? *

You probably didn’t know that there’s a Web site out there with jokes about economics and economists (http://netec.mcc.ac.uk/JOKEc.html). Likewise, you may not even really know all that much about economics. You’d be in the majority. Economics has long been neglected as a suitable subject for Kansas students. That’s true across the country. People are convinced that not only is economics not funny, it’s boring, difficult, abstruse to boot. It’s unfortunate because there is, in many ways, no more fundamental topic.

Mikel Miller, president of the Kansas Council on Economic Education, says, "The goal of ensuring every Kansas student leaves school with a basic understanding of economic principals and the economic decision-making skills needed to lead productive lives is our priority." To that end, this organization last year trained nearly 700 Kansas teachers and provided services for another 500. These teachers are now better prepared to impact the lives of 50,000 students.

The Kansas Council on Economic Education is a nonprofit, nonpartisan business-education partnership founded in 1959. Through their support network of six Centers for Economic Education located at each of the state’s Regents universities (including KU’s Edwards campus), they offer a wide array of courses and workshops to train kindergarten through 12th-grade teachers how to teach basic economic principles and decision-making skills. There are approximately 260 such centers nationwide and 48 state councils similar to Kansas’ council, which is headquartered in Wichita.

Not only does the Council provide supplemental materials, lesson-plan assistance and the like, it is also, through the support of its contributors, able to offer tuition assistance to teachers as an incentive to take the courses—$75 per credit hour. This is important, because many teachers are not anxious to take an economics course of any kind. A survey done by the organization indicated that 96 percent of the teachers who took the course said that the scholarship contributed to their decision to enroll.
To make economics enlightening to students has become an even more important goal as the Kansas legislature has included economics as a topic students are tested on on a statewide basis in sixth, eighth, and 11th grades. Sherie Surbaugh, associate director of KU’s Center for Economic Education, says that there is probably increased interest on teachers’ part due to the standards. "The Council’s tuition assistance has been a great incentive . . . but there are always teachers who just want to do a better job teaching," she says.

The content includes the concepts of scarcity, market economy, economic systems, role of government, and decision-making. A brief perusal of the questions asked and skills required would send many of us to school. For instance, in sixth grade, students should be able to give examples of government decisions that affected the economy of another nation; in 12th grade, they must analyze the role of money, banking, and the Federal Reserve System in the economy.

Mikel Miller points out that the concepts are relatively easy if one begins soon enough and if knowledge of economics becomes simply a part of one’s knowledge base. She adds that, "It’s real easy to teach these kids these concepts if you have the right tools. One the best things we do is provide those tools."

The Council is funded primarily by contributions from the Office of the State Bank Commissioner, Kansas Board of Regents, the Kansas Bankers Association, the Kansas Securities Commissioner and some other foundations. Banks and companies from across the state also support it because they, too, recognize that economic literacy improves the public’s ability to understand and analyze critical economic policy issues affecting our economy. We should all be supporting it.

*In order to make weather forecasters look good.

Contact the Kansas Council on Economic Education through their Web site, www.kcee.wichita.edu.