CAASPP Grade 11 ELA - Performance Task

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3 questions

Source #1
This article, from April 9, 2010, is from the New York Times, and is about the potential benefits of financial literacy courses.

Working Financial Literacy in With the Three R's 
by Tara Siegel Bernard

Most Americans aren't fluent in the language of money. Yet we're expected to make big financial decisions as early as our teens—Should I take on thousands of dollars of student debt? Should I buy a car?—even though most of us received no formal instruction on financial matters until it was too late.

While no course in personal finance could have prevented many Americans from getting caught up in the housing bubble1, it's clear that most of us need some help, preferably starting when we're still in school. And I'm not just talking about learning to balance your checkbook. It's understanding concepts like the time value of money, risk and reward, and, yes, the importance of savings.

All of this raises the question: What's happening inside our classrooms? And how many schools even broach the topic? As it turns out, for a country that prizes personal responsibility, we're doing very little.

"We need to teach the basics of economics and finances so people can make financial decisions in a changing world," said Annamaria Lusardi, economics professor at Dartmouth College and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. "It's the compounding of interest2, the problem of inflation3. These are the principles. And these are really scientific topics."

While more states are beginning to require some sort of personal finance instruction, there aren't enough that do, financial literacy experts say, and there is little consistency in the quality of the education. Just 13 states require students to take a personal finance course or include the subject in an economics course before they graduate from high school, up from seven states in 2007, according to the Council for Economic Education. Meanwhile, 34 states (including those 13) have personal finance within their curriculum guidelines, up from 28 states in 2007. ...

But that hasn't stopped enterprising teachers like Mathew Frost, who teaches 11th and 12th graders American history and economics at Sunset High School in Dallas, from working the topic into his student's school day. The Texas economics curriculum carves out time for personal finance, but it doesn't test students on the material. Mr. Frost says it's just too important to ignore. So he tries to bring the lesson to life for his students by pairing them up as married couples and giving them a couple of children. The students must then create a budget based on the average income range for their neighborhood, or about $21,000 to $40,000 a year. As in the board game
"Life," the students are dealt real-world circumstances.
Mr. Frost has them randomly pick "chance cards" from a bag, which might tell them they need new brakes for their car, broke an arm, suffered a death in the family, or found $20.

"I try to make it as realistic as possible," he said. "We talk about building budgets, expenses, investing money," he added, as well as "how to use credit wisely, insurance and careers."

One of his students later wrote about the experience. The 11th grader, who simulated life with a wife and two children on $21,000 a year, told of balancing needs versus wants, trying to find an apartment in a safe neighborhood that fit the family budget, and the effect of an unexpected rent increase on their savings.

"I first learned that real life isn't going to be as nice as this game," he said. "I also learned that good budgeting has to be maintained throughout a person's life no matter the income, no matter the living conditions."

Research shows that this type of financial education tends to resonate with the students later.

Michael S. Gutter, an assistant professor of family financial management at the University of Florida, studied the issue in 2009, after he surveyed 15,700 students at 15 universities who came from states with different (or nonexistent) personal finance schooling requirements. The study was financed by the National Endowment for Financial Education, a nonprofit organization in Denver that provides financial education curriculums.

"College students who came from states where there was a course required were more likely to budget, were more likely to be saving, and were less likely to have maxed out their credit cards in the last year and were more likely to be paying off their credit cards fully," Professor Gutter said. But his research also suggested that "social learning is also very powerful as well," he said. "What your parents tell you matters." ...

"It's hard because there is no silver bullet to get this into every school," said Matthew Yale, deputy chief of staff to Education Secretary Arne Duncan. "It's not as simple as saying, 'We're going to institute this in the 100,000 public schools in America.' But our plan for reauthorization does make room for financial literacy in schools, which is a really big, big deal." Mr. Yale was referring to the Obama administration's plan to revise the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, commonly known as No Child Left Behind.

He said the Department of Education's next step is to work with districts and teachers and help them find the money they need, whether it's through the many literacy-minded nonprofits or the private sector. Mr. Yale also said that department officials were working on competitive grant programs, which would allow schools to compete for money to pay for the financial literacy programs. As a joint effort with the Treasury Department, the Education Department is currently running the National Financial Capability Challenge, an online exam for high school students that measures financial know-how and recognizes outstanding performers, to help raise awareness.

President Bush created the first Advisory Council on Financial Literacy in 2008, and President Obama plans to assemble his own team. In its annual report, the first council recommended that Congress or state legislatures mandate financial education in all schools for students in kindergarten through 12th grade. But will the new administration follow through with that recommendation? Mr. Yale said education officials were "not interested in introducing unfunded mandates."

So what can we do? According to Scott Truelove, who teaches personal finance as part of a work-study program for seniors at Chesterton High School in Indiana, "It will take a parent movement."

Mr. Truelove has already seen the power of financial education in his school's hallways, where a student told him and another personal finance teacher that she set up a Roth I.R.A.4 given what she learned in class.

"That, to me, is huge," Mr. Truelove said.

1housing bubble: when housing prices rapidly increase to unsustainable levels and then collapse 
2compound interest: interest paid on both the original amount of money invested and on the interest it has already earned
3inflation: a general increase in prices that decrease the purchasing power of money
4Roth I.R.A.: a type of individual retirement account

Bernard Siegal, Tara. (2010, April 9). Working Financial Literacy in With the Three R's. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/10/your-money/10money.html.

Required

Paraphrase information from Source #1 that refutes information from Source #2 without plagiarizing.

Key Elements:
Source #1 (Working Financial Literacy in With the Three R's)
Students in Matthew Frost's American history and economics class reported that they had positive outcomes from participating in the personal finance portion of this course. One student said he learned about the importance of budgeting money. Another student reported that the class prompted her to open a Roth I.R.A.
A study conducted by a professor at the University of Florida found that students who were required to take financial literacy classes in high school were more likely to budget and save their money, and less likely to accrue credit card debt.
Source #2 (Financial Education Leaving Americans Behind)
There is evidence that financial literacy courses don't work and can potentially even harm the students who take them by making them overconfident in their ability to make good financial decisions.
Willis says that financial literacy classes can actually keep people from attaining their financial literacy goals. She cites examples of students whose financial literacy skills stayed the same or decreased after taking financial literacy classes.
A Harvard Business School study concluded that common financial literacy programs used in the past two decades did not alter the choices participants made about their finances.

Required

Click on the boxes to show the claim(s) that each source supports. Some sources will have more than one box selected.

	Source #1: Working Financial Literacy in With the Three R's	Source #2: Financial Education Leaving Americans Behind	Source #3: Financial Literacy, Beyond the Classroom	Source #4: Finance Course Prompts Debate
People should take financial literacy classes when they are young so they are prepared to make good financial decisions as young adults.
Some people support financial literacy despite evidence that it does not work.
Financial literacy education could be effective if we rethink the way it is taught.
Resources for improving financial literacy should be spent on financial regulation instead.

Required

Part 2
You will now review your notes and sources, and plan, draft, revise, and edit your writing. You may use your notes and refer to the sources. Now read your assignment and the information about how your writing will be scored; then begin your work.

Your Assignment:
After completing your research, you share your findings with your teacher, who suggests that you write an argumentative essay about financial literacy courses for the upcoming school board meeting.

Today, in preparation for the school board meeting, you will write a multi-paragraph argumentative essay in which you take a stance on the topic of financial literacy courses. Make sure you establish an argumentative claim, address potential counterarguments, and support your claim from the sources you have read. Develop your ideas clearly and use your own words, except when quoting directly from the sources. Be sure to reference the sources by title or number when using details or facts directly from the sources.

Argumentative Essay Scoring:
Your argumentative essay will be scored using the following:
Organization/purpose: How well did you state your claim, address opposing claims, and maintain your claim with a logical progression of ideas from beginning to end? How well did your ideas thoughtfully flow from beginning to end using effective transitions? How effective was your introduction and your conclusion?
Evidence/elaboration: How well did you integrate relevant and specific information from the sources? How well did you elaborate your ideas? How well did you clearly state ideas in your own words using precise language that is appropriate for your audience and purpose? How well did you reference the sources you used by title or number?
Conventions: How well did you follow the rules of grammar usage, punctuation, capitalization, and spelling?
Now begin work on your argumentative essay. Manage your time carefully so that you can
plan your multi-paragraph argumentative essay
write your multi-paragraph argumentative essay
revise and edit the final draft of your multi-paragraph argumentative essay
Word-processing tools and spell check are available to you.

For Part 2, you are being asked to write a multi-paragraph argumentative essay so be as thorough as possible. Type your response in the space provided. The box will expand as you type.

Remember to check your notes and your rewriting/planning as you write and then revise and edit your argumentative essay.