Bring Back Thrift Week

By David Lapp

A December Wall Street Journal /NBC News poll found that 66 percent of Americans now think their children’s lives will be worse than their own. But as much as we may enjoy finger-pointing, put aside the question of what the president or the Republicans should or shouldn’t do and ask yourself this question: What can I, as an educator, do to help put America on the right track?

Here’s an idea: Celebrate National Thrift Week with your students next week.

I’m serious. While it wouldn’t obliterate our federal budget deficits or cut the unemployment rate next month, it would be a modest step toward recovering the forgotten virtue of thrift—a virtue that an older generation of Americans recognized as essential to a...