4 ms·
I actually gently disagree. There is a lot of statements that education doesn't teach practical skills, but i think that's a mistake. We don't teach specifics
by Gunax 5y ago
I actually gently disagree. There is a lot of statements that education doesn't teach practical skills, but i think that's a mistake.
We don't teach specifics like 'how to do your taxes' or different retirement account types. But we teach general skills that enable those.
And frankly, those change too often (both time and jurisdiction) and are far too broad to be very useful.
When English teachers discuss Shakespeare, or history teachers discuss analyzing documents: they are generally not expecting students to have to read those particulars, but instead aiming for attainment of a more general skill (literacy, analysis, veracity).
Basically, I think it's better to just teach math and literacy in general. Then if they want to know how APR is calculated, they will have the ability to research it.
School cannot possibly teach everything one could want or need to know in life. It's more about setting a foundation.
- BitwiseFool 5y agoAs far as teaching about taxes goes, I think the best thing to do would be to broadly cover what the taxation process is. Explain what the income tax is, why FICA is split between you and your employer, what capital gains taxes are, etc. I know the specifics of the tax code are fickle but the core principles of credits, deductions, withholding, refunds, etc. have been there for decades and are likely to remain stable. But to your point, we don't need to test students on their ability to fill out a 1040 correctly, just what it's used for.