Pupil instruction: high school graduation requirements: personal finance.

Plain English Breakdown

The bill summary does not provide specific details on the content of personal finance courses beyond requiring them to cover financial literacy topics.

High School Graduation Requirements: Personal Finance

This law allows local educational agencies to integrate personal finance education into existing courses or offer it as a separate course, starting from the 2027-28 school year.

What This Bill Does

• Requires local educational agencies to offer a one-semester stand-alone personal finance course starting in the 2027–28 school year.
• Allows local educational agencies to integrate personal finance education into existing, year-long courses if they meet certain criteria and cover all required financial literacy topics.
• Authorizes schools to exempt students who complete an integrated personal finance course from a separate economics requirement for graduation.
• Enables schools to award credits towards other high school graduation requirements for completing the personal finance component within an integrated course.

Who It Names or Affects

• High school students in grades 9 to 12
• Local educational agencies offering courses to these students

Terms To Know

Instructional Quality Commission

A group that recommends curriculum frameworks for schools.

Curriculum Frameworks

Guidelines and standards for teaching subjects in California public schools.

Limits and Unknowns

• The bill does not specify the exact content of personal finance courses beyond requiring them to cover financial literacy topics.
• It is unclear how this change will be implemented or funded by local educational agencies.

Official Summary Text

SB 1147, as amended, Ochoa Bogh.
Pupil instruction: high school graduation requirements: personal finance.
Existing law establishes the Instructional Quality Commission and requires the commission to, among other things, recommend curriculum frameworks to the State Board of Education and consider including, when revising the history-social science curriculum framework, age-appropriate information on specified financial literacy topics for kindergarten and grades 1 to 12, inclusive, as provided.
Existing law requires a pupil to complete designated coursework while in grades 9 to 12, inclusive, in order to receive a diploma of graduation from high school. These graduation requirements include, among others, the completion of 3 courses in social studies, including a one-semester course in economics. Commencing with pupils graduating in the 2030–31 school year, existing law requires the completion of a separate, stand-alone one-semester course in
personal finance that is prohibited from being combined with any other course. Existing law requires this personal finance course to include information on all of, and only, the above-described financial literacy topics recommended for inclusion in the revised history-social science curriculum framework. Commencing with the 2027–28 school year, existing law requires a local educational agency with pupils in grades 9 to 12, inclusive, to offer a separate, stand-alone one-semester course in personal finance, and also authorizes a local educational agency to exempt a pupil who completes such a course from the graduation requirement to complete a one-semester course in economics.
If a local educational agency elects to offer a personal finance course offered as part of an integrated, year-long course that is equivalent in quality and rigor to the stand-alone personal finance course and that has a course scope that includes, at a minimum, the above-described financial
literacy topics recommended for inclusion in the revised history-social science curriculum framework, this bill would (1) deem that course to satisfy the above-described graduation requirement to complete a stand-alone personal finance course, (2) additionally authorize the local educational agency to exempt a pupil who completes such a course from the graduation requirement to complete a one-semester course in economics,
and
(3) deem that course to satisfy the above-described requirement on local educational agencies with pupils in grades 9 to 12, inclusive, to offer a separate, stand-alone one-semester course in personal
finance, and (4) authorize the local educational agency to also award credit to a pupil who completes such a course for coursework in that year-long course in the subject the course is offered, including, if applicable, credit toward satisfying a course required for a diploma of graduation from high school.
finance.

Current Bill Text

Download Bill PDF