Five Questions With: Jim Hedemark

"THESE TROUBLED economic times have amplified the spotlight that we shine on the need for youth financial literacy," said Jim Hedemark, executive director of the nonprofit Rhode Island Jump$tart Coalition /

Jim Hedemark wants Rhode Island youngsters to know how to handle their finances. Since 2004, he has served as executive director of the nonprofit Rhode Island Jump$tart Coalition, part of a national organization dedicated to encouraging schools to teach basic personal financial management skills. It’s a mission that has taken on a new importance in light of the economic downturn.
In Rhode Island, the coalition consists of a board of 10 directors and several dozen partners from the academic, business and civic sectors.

PBN: First of all, can you give an overview of the Jump$tart Coalition?
HEDEMARK:
The “trial and error” method of personal financial education (financial literacy) has failed too many for too long. And today’s penalties for even honest financial mistakes have become life-altering.
We are a coalition of stakeholders who believe that while billions of dollars in pounds of “cure” are being spent to revitalize our economy, a sustainable market correction must involve many more “ounces” of prevention in the realm of consumer education, especially among our K-12 students.
We are the only organization in Rhode Island with the sole purpose of increasing youth financial literacy, and we carry out our mission by promoting our national standards, training educators, conducting research and working with school systems to deliver comprehensive personal financial education.
The key differentiation between the coalition’s approach and other efforts is that rather than offering one- or two-day student experiences, we are working for systemic education reform that fully integrates personal financial education throughout the students’ K-12 experience.

PBN: Laura Levine of the President’s Advisory Council on Financial Literacy and the national executive director of the Jump$tart Coalition came to Rhode Island recently to mark the local program’s five-year anniversary. She also outlined the advisory council’s report to the president on financial literacy. Can you give some of the highlights of that report?
HEDEMARK:
I am encouraged that the financial literacy movement has reached the desk of our nation’s highest executive. Laura, Chairman Charles Schwab and the other President’s Council members provided the president with straightforward recommendations earlier this year. The first, and in my opinion the most important recommendation, is that the U.S. Congress and state legislatures should mandate personal financial education in K-12 grades.

PBN: How has the severe downturn in the economy changed the mission of Jump$tart? How has it changed how others see the program?
HEDEMARK:
Our mission has not changed, however these troubled economic times have amplified the spotlight that we shine on the need for youth financial literacy. Not only has our movement received more attention, the coalition itself has emerged as the trusted leader in the policy area.
We have seen a dramatic rise in the number of schools and organizations that want to work with the coalition in the past couple of years. Unfortunately, the rise in opportunities to provide service has not been met with a commensurate rise in resources. We are well-positioned to immediately leverage additional funding, in some cases with matching federal funds that will go to other states if we are not able to secure additional local funding.

- Advertisement -

PBN: Rhode Island has no requirement that students receive some type of financial education, but the General Assembly approved a joint resolution urging the R.I. Department of Education to develop a statewide strategy and action plan for increasing the personal financial literacy among middle and high school students. What has happened to that effort?
HEDEMARK:
“I wish I had had that course,” is the most common response that I get from adults when I describe the work of the Jump$tart Coalition.
In 2008, we conducted two important research efforts that we shared with the Rhode Island Joint Legislative Commission to Study Youth Financial Education in Rhode Island public schools. The first tells us that Ocean State high school seniors can answer only 48 percent of personal financial questions correctly.
The second tells us that only 5 percent of Rhode Island high school students take at least a semester-long course dedicated to personal finance. While most Rhode Island high schools offer at least one course in personal finance, students either do not elect to take these courses or the seats are filled up quickly, leaving the vast majority of students without opportunity to learn important financial life skills.
The Department of Education has expressed an interest in fulfilling the legislative request to form a financial literacy task force, but has cited the reduction of staff as a barrier to action.

PBN: What efforts and programs have you and Jump$tart undertaken recently to increase the interest in financial literacy?
HEDEMARK:
Our most ambitious effort to date is our current youth personal financial education expansion program. We have created school-based teams of administrators, teachers and financial service industry volunteers in 10 high schools that have made a pledge to increase the quantity and quality of youth personal financial education at the schools.
Until Rhode Island joins states that require personal financial education in all schools, we are taking an incremental approach, creating working models that prove that with determination and creativity, school systems can prepare all of their students for their personal financial futures.

No posts to display