by James A. Bacon
Back in April, I posted on a Wallethub survey ranking Virginia as the third most financially literate state in the country. Now comes a survey of the 100 best high schools in the country for teaching personal finance, as determined by Working In Support of Education (WISE). It turns out that 29 Virginia high schools rank in the top 100 nationally. (Hat tip: Tim Wise.)
School systems from all around Virginia are represented on the list. What really stands out, however, is an extraordinary cluster of schools in the Bristol-Abingdon area of Southwest Virginia. These schools ranked among the very best in the entire country. (The school ranking does not make it clear what criteria were used, but I surmise it was student scores on WISE’s Financial Literacy Certification Test.)
7. Holston High School, Damascus (Washington County)
15. Virginia High School, Bristol
17. Patrick Henry High School, Glade Spring (Washington County)
27. Abingdon High School, Abingdon
John S. Battle High School in Bristol also ranked in the Top 100 nationally.
The only comparable clusters of Top 30 schools came from New York City and surrounding jurisdictions, a region of roughly 100 times the population.
For whatever reason, the list of Virginia schools was totally dominated by small-town and rural school districts. There was smattering of Top 100 schools from Northern Virginia and the Richmond metros. Tim Wise, who blogs regularly on the Arlington County Taxpayers Association blog, laments that no schools from Arlington made it on the list.
The extraordinary concentration of top-performing schools in the Bristol-Abingdon area creates an interesting sociological experiment. Obviously, school administrators in the area have made financial literacy a high priority, and just as obviously students have responded. Can we now expect to see increasingly responsible personal financial behavior in that part of the state? Will more young people set up bank accounts? Will they pay off their credit cards more diligently? Will they be more prudent about the accumulation of college debt? Will they set up more IRA accounts?
Excessive personal spending and a nonchalant attitude towards debt are a big part of what ails this country. I would like to know if self-destructive financial behavior stems from simple ignorance or whether it reflects deeper-rooted cultural norms. If WISE wants to document the impact of financial literacy education on the real world. Bristol, Abingdon and Washington County would be a great case study.
