Testing the Economic Literacy of K-12 Teachers: A State-Wide Baseline Analysis.

ABSTRACT Without a Council for Economic Education affiliated state council, Mississippi lacked a formal economic education advocate for more than two decades. A new state council along with two university-based centers have recently undertaken an aggressive push to elevate the role and importance of economics in Mississippi's K-12 school systems. This study examines the level of economic literacy, as measured by standardized test scores, exhibited by K-12 teachers in the state near the beginning of this endeavor. A standard regression model is estimated to reveal those factors associated with the teachers' test scores. The results suggest that teachers, particularly elementary teachers, had relatively low levels of initial economic understanding. The degree of economic literacy was found to vary across gender, racial ethnicity, age, annual family income, and the previous levels of formal economics instruction. Additionally, teachers who taught economics as a separate discipline and those without a broad portfolio of teaching responsibilities scored higher, holding all else constant. INTRODUCTION For more than fifty years the Council for Economic Education (CEE) has orchestrated a nationwide campaign to enhance the economic literacy of our nation's citizens. To accomplish this, the CEE (formerly known as the National Council on Economic Education) relies on a network of non-profit state councils and university-based centers that provide teacher training and resources to the country's K-12 schools. The level and intensity of the CEE's work has, however, varied dramatically across states over time. This variation is a function of a large number of dynamic factors, such as state curriculum mandates, teacher licensing requirements, the local and regional business climate, competition with other non-profits, and the leadership and management skills of those overseeing the state councils and running the university-based centers. Historically, some state councils have been more successful than others at maintaining a strong advocacy base and a positive working relationship with their local educational and business communities. Given these realities, the training and preparedness of teachers also varies across states and over time. To provide effective support, state councils and university-based centers should be cognizant of the existing degree of economic human capital held by their teacher clients. Clearly, knowledge of the current state of economic understanding by local teachers is particularly important in those states where teacher training programs in economics have not been readily available. This study examined the degree of economic understanding of K-1 2 teachers in one of those states, Mississippi, where the CEE network was formally inactive for more than two decades until the current Mississippi Council on Economic Education (MCEE) was organized in 2003. The first section provides a brief overview of the history of economic education advocacy in Mississippi. This is followed by an overview of the study and our empirical model. The results are then presented and interpreted. Conclusions and recommendations are discussed in the final section. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Mississippi boasted an active CEE-affiliated state council from the mid 1 960s through the beginnings of the 1 980s. During the early years of this period, the council flourished. At one time, the original MCEE supported five university-based centers for economic education (Mississippi State University, the University of Mississippi, the University of Southern Mississippi, Delta State University, and William Carey College) and even hosted the annual national conference of the CEE and the National Association of Economic Educators (NAEE) at Biloxi in 1970. By 1980 much of the original MCEE's financial support had been consolidated with that of the state's Chamber of Commerce, known as the Mississippi Economic Council (MEC). …