DENVER | The state Senate Education Committee heard testimony Thursday in favor of a bill that would bolster Colorado’s academic standards tied to personal finance, but the committee stopped short of casting a vote on the measure after several members raised concerns over its necessity.
Senate Bill 45, which is sponsored by Sen. Nancy Todd, D-Aurora, seeks to add information on student loan debt and retirement planning to the state’s academic standards for public schools. The measure would also add materials on student loans and retirement to an informational resource bank curated by the state Board of Education.
A trio of Senate Republicans voiced opposition to SB 45, arguing that making tweaks to the state’s academic standards is the responsibility of the state Board of Education, not the Legislature.
“It seems you’re doing exactly the right thing in a way that I’m not sure that I can support because it dictates to the state Board of Education, not the local school boards, what will be taught,” Sen. Chirs Holbert, R-Parker, told Todd at the committee meeting. “I’m reluctant to pass a law that says that.”
Todd’s bill, which is co-sponsored by Rep. Brittney Petterson, D-Lakewood, folds into a 2008 measure that outlines broad financial literacy guidelines for the state’s public school curriculum. However, the 2008 statute does not require that schools provide classes devoted exclusively to financial literacy. Instead, the measure passed eight years ago dictates that schools must incorporate information on concepts such as interest rates, budgeting and credit into pre-existing classes such as math or family and consumer science, according to Todd. Curricular decisions regarding how financial literacy is integrated are largely left up to local school boards.
That’s what Holbert said would become murky if SB 45 were to move forward.
“It seems more aligned with the constitution that we send a letter, go talk to (the state school board) and say, ‘please do this…’ but I’m reluctant to pass a law that says that they have to do that,” he said. “That’s what I’m struggling with.”
Committee Chairman Sen. Owen Hill, R-Colorado Springs, and Sen. Laura Woods, R-Arvada, also raised concerns with the measure.
Todd countered the opposition by stating that a governing body is designed to pass bills, not defer to external boards, and that the measure’s purpose is relatively minor in scope.
“It concerns me that there was the feeling that the state board can just make those decisions as opposed to the process of legislation and working through statutes and moving it along,” Todd said. “They’re pretty simple tweaks as far as I’m concerned, but essential and very, very important.”
Todd identified the nation’s ballooning outstanding loan debt as her primary reason for sponsoring SB 45.
“Default on loans is huge for our country, so looking at a way to help educate kids to combat that is key,” Todd said. “And not just in high school, but starting in Kindergarten and on from there.”
Nationwide, outstanding student loan debt tripled between 2004 and 2012 and currently totals more than $1 trillion, according to a 2013 study conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York which was referenced in SB 45.
Several students from the University of Denver testified before the committee and cited a gross lack of financial literacy information in their respective high school curricula.
“I was never taught the importance of planning for retirement or the best ways to apply for a student loan, and I know many students who shared this experience,” Kieran Doyle, a graduate of a public high school in Colorado Springs and current student at DU wrote in a letter to the editor that was published in the Aurora Sentinel Thursday. “I wish the personal finance curriculum in high school provided a better sense of the many types of loans – private, public, fixed interest, etc. – and the risk of defaulting on loans, as well as the implications for future saving plans.”
There was no testimonial opposition to the bill.
At the end of the committee meeting, Hill laid the measure over to an unspecified date.
The Senate Education Committee is next slated to meet for a joint session on Feb. 3 and as a standalone entity on Feb. 4.