RLPF-I FAQs

Districts and Charter schools in Texas that educate high school students are required to offer a personal financial literacy course. For many reasons, most schools offer a course but do not conduct the course or encourage students to sign-up for it.

Most students state they want real-life education, courses which will prepare them for adulthood and the future. How is it possible that they do not connect the dots between what they want and a personal financial education course?

Maybe the students were not asked to enroll. Perhaps the districts were concerned they did not have a quality, professionally designed, personal finance course to offer or their teachers were not subject-matter qualified to teach the course? With the Real Life Personal Finance series, both of these concerns are addressed. See below.

1. RLPF-I is written by award-winning financial professionals with forty years of experience in financial education.
2. RLPF-I is updated annually. This saves teachers hundreds of hours of additional work trying to identify objective, updated reference material, changing assignments and videos.
3. With a legislative mandate, RLPF-I provides a 1/2 social studies credit.
4. It is approved by the TEA meeting 100% of the TEKS and ELPS and accessibility standards.
5. In addition to acquiring a deep-level of understanding of the subject matter, students are challenged to think, problem-solve, work in teams, make presentations and communicate with adults.
6. Students develop a plan for their future and make changes now to secure postsecondary education and a financially secure future. This translates into outcomes for the district with more students graduating career and college ready, more attending PSE and more graduating from PSE.
7. Students master Canvas Learning Management Systems. This LMS is frequently licensed by colleges and universities. Using it now is an excellent foundation for online learning.

If you plan on developing your own course, please recognize the time, energy, professional knowledge needed. If a teacher or department head truly had the knowledge, passion, and understanding to write this course, a career change should be recommended. The average income for a financial planner is about $150,000 a year.  D&A developed this course because we are a social impact entity with a mission – we want students to achieve their goals.

Unlike other high school courses where the instructor often conveys information by a lecture, in this course, the student is responsible for acquiring the information independently. A teacher is still valuable because he can add real-life subject matter experience.  The student will benefit if the teacher is a student of personal finance and is willing to learn from the publishers, from friends, and from students. The instructor should want to be increasingly more comfortable with a Socratic method of teaching – loves to ask relevant questions and have the student derive answers. Finally, we suggest a teacher be assigned who believes this course can teach all students how to think and change their future.

Unlike other high school courses where the instructor often conveys information by a lecture, in this course, the student is responsible for acquiring the information independently. A teacher is still valuable because he can add real-life subject matter experience.  The student will benefit if the teacher is a student of personal finance and is willing to learn from the publishers, from friends, and from students. The instructor should want to be increasingly more comfortable with a Socratic method of teaching – loves to ask relevant questions and have the student derive answers. Finally, we suggest a teacher be assigned who believes this course can teach all students how to think and change their future.