It’s Their Future

Teaching Middle and High School Students About National Debt, the Federal Budget, and America’s Fiscal Horizon

By Andrew L. Yarrow

Sixty years ago, an enlightened group of educators and business leaders, concerned that young Americans knew too little about the economy, created the Joint Council on Economic Education to develop and disseminate curriculum about personal finance, macroeconomics, and public finance to millions of schoolchildren. Ever since, a host of organizations—from Junior Achievement, to an interagency Financial Literacy and Education Commission, to many business groups—have made increasing Americans’...