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Press Release: State Superintendent to Join Financial Literacy Council

Dr. Lowery to Join The President's Council On Financial Capability For Young Americans


For Immediate Release                      Contact: Bill Reinhard, 410-767-0486 


Baltimore, MD (July 14, 2014)

President Barack Obama has announced his intent to nominate Maryland State Superintendent of Schools Lillian M. Lowery to serve on the President’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability for Young Americans.

The Council advises the President and the Secretary of the Treasury on how to promote financial capability among young people and encourage building financial literacy in schools, families, and the workplace through technology.

Also announced by the President was his intention to nominate new ambassadors and a number of senior advisors to his Administration.

“I am grateful that these impressive individuals have chosen to dedicate their talents to serving the American people at this important time for our country,” President Obama said in a statement. “I look forward to working with them in the months and years ahead.”

Maryland has been a national leader in financial literacy education.  Maryland schools since the 2011-12 school year have been required to provide instruction for all students in grades 3 through 12. The curriculum is designed to help students make informed, financially responsible decisions, develop money management skills, and understand how their financial choices affect their future.

“I am honored to be invited to serve on the council and I look forward to sharing Maryland’s success stories with the nation,” Dr. Lowery said. “The President is taking action to help underserved populations in particular by preparing children from a young age to make sound financial decisions. This work has the potential to help all communities.”

On June 25, 2013, President Obama signed Executive Order 13646 creating a new President's Advisory Council on Financial Capability for Young Americans. The Council’s recommendations will contribute to the nation's future financial stability and increase upward economic mobility. Strengthening the financial capability of our young people is an investment in our nation's economic prosperity.

The Council seeks to identify ways to:

  • build strong public-private partnerships between and among members of the Financial Literacy and Education Commission; other agencies; State, tribal, and local governments; and private entities to coordinate the use of high quality financial capability resources and practices in schools, families, communities, and elsewhere in order to build the financial capability of young Americans;
  • support ongoing research and evaluation of financial education and capability activities aimed at young people to determine and disseminate effective approaches;
  • effectively assess the financial capability, including both financial knowledge and financial behaviors, of young Americans;
  • identify and develop strategies to pilot financial capability approaches in schools and among young people that are likely to have significant effects on young Americans' financial capability, and determine ways to test and implement such innovations in a large-scale and sustainable manner;
  • identify, develop, and measure the effectiveness of technology-driven approaches to promote financial capability among young people;
  • identify and test promising and tested approaches for increasing planning, saving, and investing for retirement by young people; and
  • promote the importance of starting to plan and act early for financial success broadly among Americans through public awareness campaigns or other means.

The Council is comprised of the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Education, the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and up to 22 non-governmental members

For more on Maryland’s financial literacy programs for students, see http://msde.state.md.us/fle

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