I officially launched this project in summer of 2024. The last few years (Phase 1) have really been about figuring out what I want this project to be about, finding my angle and perspective, and determining how I want to create and share content. The process of Phase 1 has helped me clarify my direction and identify ways I think I can be helpful to educators. At this point, I’m comfortable with where I’ve landed in terms of voice and format (though I do plan to keep experimenting with the podcast), and I intend to keep creating content as I consider new questions, find resources, and build tools. The next part (Phase 2) isn’t about changing any of that. Instead, it’s about integrating this project into my professional scholarship, and about digging in further to understand what teachers actually need.
Bringing this into my research
Up to this point, I’ve run Personal Finance for Educators alongside and largely apart from academic work rather than through it. That’s the part I’m planning to change in Phase 2. I’m leaning into how I can utilize my position as a teacher educator to bring greater relevance to the content I create. To this end, I’m developing a formal research study on teacher financial literacy in Wisconsin.
The core of that study will be a survey I plan to send to K-12 teachers across Wisconsin. My goal is to have better evidence of what educators know, or don’t know, about personal finance: where the gaps are between the Wisconsin Retirement System, salary structures, and what teachers understand about their own paycheck and benefits. As I discussed in a previous post, I think personal finance education is a missing piece in our teacher retention efforts. We need to support folks in understanding their own personal finance context, the opportunities, potential pitfalls, and broader financial picture.
Along with the research study, I’ve also started to branch out into giving conference presentations on personal finance. Last May, I presented at the Wisconsin Mathematics Council Annual Conference, and this fall I’ll be giving a talk at WI-AMTE’s fall conference. Conceptualizing this project as scholarship that sits at the intersection of mathematics teacher education and financial literacy is a new way for me to think about this work, one I anticipate will be generative.
Two Goals for this Year
This year, I have two goals for the project.
Goal 1: Handbook Chats. Starting this fall, I’d like to start hosting handbook chats. The idea is simple. I meet with one or a few educators and we take a walk through their district handbook. As I have discussed previously, handbooks are dense, full of policy language, and can be intimidating at first glance. Moreover, if you only look at one handbook, you might not recognize what’s unique about a district, or what’s missing. I want to chat with folks and help them understand what’s there, from sick leave, to benefits, to pay schedules, whatever’s relevant to them. This is partly about helping individual teachers, and partly about learning. Every conversation like this tells me more about what’s actually confusing people, which feeds back into the tools and the writing.
Goal 2: More presentations. I’m also hoping to give more presentations this year, for teachers in districts across Wisconsin. I’ve done a few of these already, at the Wisconsin Mathematics Council conference and at UWL for preservice teachers, and they’ve been very useful in helping me identify questions and potential topics for discussion. If you’re part of a district or organization that might want a session on anything I’ve blogged about, whether it’s the WRS, understanding a paycheck, or something else entirely, I’d like to hear from you.
Circling Back to Purpose
At the outset of the project, I set forth the following goals:
Build relationships and foster a supportive community for educators.
Identify and discuss resources, tools, etc. useful for personal finance.
Think through strategies and approaches for different financial education topics.
Share my perspective on education, teaching, and learning.
I think these goals still capture what I’m trying to do two years on. Phase 1 was about building a foundation. Phase 2 is about gathering more data and using it to direct the project toward those things that teachers have said they want and need.
I’ll likely share more on the survey, handbook chats, and presentations as they come together. If you’re a Wisconsin teacher and any of these things sounds like something you’d want to be part of, please reach out: josh@personalfinanceforeducators.com.
~Josh