Why don't schools teach personal finance?

You guys realize that its government employees who determine the curriculum right? When has the government ran anything successfully?

school teaches you how to be a good worker.... thats it

ive learnt more outside than in school and still learning

There was economics in my school when I was 12 years old. And some civic explaining some rules and regulations of the country blah blah blah.

But think like this....If they thought you everything as a child your childhood would be lost. I believe that nothing in this world can buy the following things.

1) My first award (Let it be in painting)
2) My first time when I fell on my knees and got injured
3) The first time when someone shared his lunch box/chocolates with me
4) My first kiss
5) First time I fell in love with my class teacher

The list could go on....Do you still think money can buy you all this? My friend these memories are price less

Also I thank my education system for not teaching me personal finance. I bet I would be a bad student then. I have fallen many a times on my face and had the strength to get up and start again.

Leaders are born not made in this world. Everything else is superficial. If you believe in yourself you can win everything in this world

My school did but it doesn't really matter since it wasn't taught very well. It has huge emphasis on getting credit cards and maintaining healthy balances and whatnot. They even had credit card companies come in teaching us how to get more credit cards.

I'm not too much of a fan of adding curriculum to schools as I didn't learn anything in school and what is being taught now isn't that great.

I spent my youth reading books which was the majority of my learning. I would read in school when bored and get books taken away from me which was utterly frustrating.

it's not just public schooling that sucks. most public services funded by the government pretty much suck in general. for example if you go to the dmv or the post office often, you'll notice that the people working there don't seem to give a shit about the quality of service they provide.

analyzing this from a business perspective, the reason becomes obvious. in order for a normal business to thrive, it has to provide excellent service to its customers. if it doesn't, then it gets eliminated by the competition in a process similar to natural selection.

government services do not have this same incentive. they get funded by our tax dollars regardless of how shitty of a job they do. there's no chance of them going out of business because their customers didn't like the service. they don't even have to produce a positive ROI. their quality standards can be far lower than any privately owned business and they'd suffer none of the same consequences.

since public schooling is a service provided by the government, it's naturally going to be shitty, with no incentive whatsoever for improvement. and the consequence of this is that the kids we send there are going to get a crappy education.

to me it doesn't look like there's any sort of conspiracy going on. this just happens to be the way that the system naturally evolved, based on the principles on which it was built.

so the bottom line is, if you want a good education, you should not rely on public services to provide it for you, because they have no incentive to. you just have to learn things on your own. fortunately, we have the internet to enable us to do that. had it been 30 years ago, you would've had to go to a goddamn library or something.

=P

I completely agree with the OP. I've thought the exact same thing numerous times. It's GOVERNMENT education, and government isn't going to teach you how you don't need it.

Also, consider WHO is actually doing the government-to-children interface: TEACHERS.

Are these self-motivated, goal-oriented entrepreneurs? Free-spirited freethinkers that blaze their own trail? Do they define themselves as a self-contained entity, with excellence and success being the qualities they strive daily to exemplify?

Or are these the weak-willed, security-driven obsessive-compulsives that will endure any indignity as long as their mediocre place in the anonymous herd is guaranteed?

These folks are incapable of teaching the independent qualities most of us live for; they are by definition incapable of it. They've chosen their entire life's track in an effort to avoid the very thing we are all striving for. Great risk = Great Reward vs. No risk = Secure future.

I think about these things while listening to retarded right-wing talk radio. All these military, government employees, etc... waving the flag (oo! They're red, white & blue!) while playing "Hail to the Chief" and pointing the cannon right at me, and telling me it's the poor, th homeless and the downtrodden that I need to worry about, either because they are getting too much of my money, or not enough.

I think it's the gutless cowards that exist off my life's efforts I need to worry about. They have a higher standard of living than I may ever be able to achieve, and they get theirs at my expense. My life's potential is forever diminished so that they do not have to compete fairly in an open marketplace.

And so, with the anti-right wing comment as a reference, I have concluded that it is both the right and the left that are my enemies. There is no difference between the Socialism of wealth redistribution and the Socialism of Corporate Welfare; Both are funded at my expense.

And without my permission.