Council on Economic Education in Maryland

For more than 65 years, the Maryland Council on Economic Education (MCEE) has been focused on creating lasting change in communities in Baltimore and throughout Maryland by expanding economic and financial literacy in K-12 students, empowering them to create a more prosperous future for themselves and Maryland.

Our goal is to increase economic and financial literacy through a close partnership with the educational community. We want to impact all students to be contributors to Maryland's economic health and work closely with public school systems, private and parochial schools, home schools, as well as with community organizations that are similarly focused on education.

We also seek to tear down barriers to the knowledge needed to create wealth and individual prosperity through supporting engaging and meaningful economic and financial education in schools. Knowledge affects an individual's ability to assess risks and tolerance for risk affects long-term investment decisions which in turn affect sustainability and quality of life, particularly in retirement. Children and young adults need this critical education to make informed, well measured decisions throughout their lives.

For more than 65 years, the Maryland Council on Economic Education has focused our work in three key areas.

First, we train and resource teachers to enhance the quality of instruction of economic and financial concepts. The vast majority of teachers have had very limited exposure in their own academic career to economics and personal finance coursework and many are not confident in managing their own affairs. As a result, most teachers express very little confidence in sharing these vital concepts with their students. MCEE works to improve teacher skills and confidence through workshops and training seminars, taught by fellow educators, that is focused on both core concepts as well as age appropriate delivery of instruction. We believe their are lessons to be taught in all subject areas and work with teachers from K-12 in math, social studies, language arts, business, ESOL, gifted and talented, JROTC and more.

In addition, we provide transformational hands-on student programs that ignite a passion within the students themselves and sets a path for lifelong learning. We provide programs that provide sustained learning over time, versus a one day experience. One of our key programs is the Stock Market Game Experience which provides a framework for learning about the world of investing, saving and risk management over a three or six month experience. Students learn how to evaluate investment opportunities, how to purchase and sell investment products, how to create wealth over the long term, and how current events can impact short term investment performance. In addition, we provide a year-long Economics Challenge competition Program and a year-long Personal Finance Challenge competition program at the high school level that provides a vehicle for students to apply learning in a case study analysis competition.

And finally, we serve to bring together key community stakeholders to advocate for the expansion of rigorous financial education so that all Marylanders, especially students, have the knowledge needed to make informed financial decisions in today’s complex financial environment. Through regular meetings of our Financial Education Network, we share information about opportunities for expansion in our state and region and work to mobilize resources to support expansion of economics and financial literacy education wherever possible.

The Maryland Council on Economic Education is uniquely positioned to meet our goals through our long history and reputation for success as well as our strong partnerships with the educational community. We have been long recognized as a critical partner to the Maryland State Department of Education and have close relationships with supervisors in all of our 23 county school systems and Baltimore City Schools as well. Our training is well regarded and we are frequently asked to provide Professional Development training for teachers by content area supervisors.

As educators ourselves, we understand teachers and the challenges and rewards of educating students. We also understand how to navigate educational systems and how to include economic and personal finance content into the existing framework and curriculum.

We are respected additionally for reviewing and curating a plethora of age appropriate lessons and resources from variety of free sources to recommend the most robust and engaging resources for teachers. We are not tied to any specific resources and thus can maintain objectivity with a constant focus on what is best for teachers and students.

In 2019, we served 2,347 teachers throughout Maryland's 23 counties and Baltimore City. Over the last five years, we have served 11,372 teachers. Each teacher trained and resourced can impact students for the rest of his/her career. Investing in one teacher can impact thousands of students over a 30 year teaching career.