Olympia, WA – The words “budgeting,” “investing” and “credit” will be the new buzz words throughout Washington this spring as Mad About Money, a live, in-school theater show, comes to area schools. Sponsored by the Washington Department of Financial Institutions (DFI), performers with the National Theatre for Children, Inc. (NTC) will teach middle-school students about the principles of saving and spending with its unique mixture of personal finance and humor. The tour begins today and continues through June. By the tour’s end, the troupe will introduce over 12,000 teachers and students to money management.
“It is critical that smart spending habits start early. In a survey administered by the Jump Coalition, 65 percent of high-school seniors, on average, failed a test that determined their knowledge of personal-finance basics,” said Scott Kinney, DFI Director of Communications and president of the Washington Jump Coalition. “Mad About Money unites improv comedy with proven education techniques to help students understand the basics of personal finance – an education that will serve them well throughout their lives.”
“Financial literacy is unacceptably low in this country,” adds Lewis Mandell, Ph.D., professor of finance and managerial economics at the State University of New York-Buffalo. “Having evaluated the impact of NTC’s financial-literacy programs on students’ attitudes toward managing their finances, we know that shows like Mad About Money are an effective way to improve their knowledge about saving and budgeting.”
Mad About Money will tour 48 middle schools covering Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia, Vancouver, Yakima, and Spokane. The show features professional actors who play a wide variety of colorful characters in four sketches. While watching a dad teach his son the difference between “needs” and “wants,” or an unsuspecting car buyer learn about credit from a smooth-talking salesman, students learn to prioritize how their money is spent, the importance of developing a savings habit and ways to invest for the future.
Beyond the in-school performances, Mad About Money program components include educational workbooks in Spanish and English, take-home activities, Internet exercises, handy guidebooks, curricular aids for teachers, and a rigorous testing method for measuring program results.