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For Immediate Release
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Contact:Chandra Allard 617-367-6900; JC Considine 781-338-3112

Gateway City High Schools Encouraged to Apply for New, Innovative Financial Literacy Pilot Grant Program

BOSTON - Massachusetts Treasurer Steven Grossman and Elementary and Secondary Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester are encouraging Gateway City high schools to apply for competitive, state-funded grants to support the planning and piloting of financial literacy programs. Established by the Legislature in July 2012, the three-year pilot program would help equip high school students with the knowledge and skills necessary to become self-supporting and make critical decisions regarding personal finances. The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has issued a request for proposals to provide first-year planning grants to teams of educators and partners to work together to develop a financial literacy program that schools would pilot during the 2013-14 school year. The pilot program will award competitive grants to 10 public high schools located in the Commonwealth's 24 Gateway municipalities. Each high school is eligible to receive approximately $20,000 planning the pilot programs that will be implemented starting in the fall of 2013. "This pilot program will help guarantee that we have the framework to provide each student in the Commonwealth with basic financial literacy before graduation," said Treasurer Steven Grossman. "I encourage high schools in all of our 24 Gateway communities to consider being part of this groundbreaking program." "To ensure success after high school, every student must graduate having obtained key personal financial literacy concepts and skills that are important to college and career readiness, and to making key life decisions," said Commissioner Chester. High schools selected for the pilot program will need to align proposed curricula with the Massachusetts Curriculum Framework in Mathematics, which incorporates the Common Core State Standards, and the Economic Education Council's National Standards for Financial Literacy. An 11-member Financial Literacy Advisory Committee, which Treasurer Grossman and Commissioner Chester co-chair, will evaluate the success of the pilot program and issue a report on the effectiveness of the program after its first three years of implementation. Treasurer Grossman and Commissioner Chester conducted a grant information session for interested parties from the Gateway municipalities on January 18, 2013. Proposals for the pilot program are due to the Department by 5 p.m. on Friday, February 15, 2013. For more information on this grant opportunity, go to http://www.doe.mass.edu/stem/grants.html.



Last Updated: February 5, 2013



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