PUBLIC education often lacks the ability to provide children with skills due to the lack of appropriate resources. When private institutions offer schools a wellspring of resources, these schools should consider the offer as a perfect opportunity. Wells Fargo Bank is providing financial education to schoolchildren throughout the country, and the company should be praised for its effort to supply this greatly needed service.
Wells Fargo has teamed up with Operation Hope, Inc., a non-profit organization, and the SmartForce e-learning company to offer a comprehensive outreach to teach financial literacy in classrooms in western parts of the country. The outreach teaches students with an online or offline computer software tutorial. They also staff special assemblies at schools where children use wireless laptops and demonstration computers on which students can take the tutorial. Many public interest groups have attacked this effort, claiming that commercializing the classroom is harmful. Wells Fargo should continue the program against all criticism - the company is doing a great service where no one else will front the costs.
The motivation for implementing this program is overwhelmingly humanitarian. In targeting low-income communities, Wells Fargo is not banking on any multi-million dollar accounts from the program's users. The company instead is increasing its visibility on the Internet. Perhaps this campaign is increasing traffic to Wells Fargo's Web site in general, but surely the company doesn't expect the very targets of the school campaign - elementary school through high school age children - to break their ceramic piggy banks and deposit the contents into Wells Fargo. The company doesn't expect this venture to transform the bank into the world's leading financial institution.
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The motivation for this effort must be humanitarian, although the company may be able to claim the costs of the program for a tax credit. Households in low-income communities now easily can use the online tutorial to learn how to manage personal finances. The Internet opens up a world of information to those who could learn about personal finance.
Wells Fargo's thorough research determined that households in the lowest income group obtained Internet connections at a rate of 28 percent last year, the highest of any income sector. The efforts of libraries and schools worked to bridge the digital divide over the past year, bringing the total household Internet hookups in the low-income group to 36 percent. When there is such need for schools to teach students about personal finance, as 90 percent of all graduating high-school students have had no formal instruction, we should allow a private entity to fill this function (http://www.wellsfargo.com/press/press_overview.html).
As we move further into the information and technology age, an important part of education is using new technologies to manage personal finances. Often it is parents who teach their children the principles of personal finance. Although consumer advocates do not oppose the teaching of financial literacy in the classroom, they don't want public corporations to support them. If public schools are not taking the initiative in teaching this vital part of adult productivity, we should allow private enterprises to step into that role.
The argument against classroom commercialization assumes companies are conceptualizing children as a market for their product. Though this may be true in some cases, it fails to accurately portray Wells Fargo's situation. These children are not looking for a place to invest their funds. Even if the parents are the target audience for this public relations campaign, they have the maturity it takes to forego the little pressure of advertising that the Wells Fargo program contains.
The Internet program is mostly generic, though certain items like the checkbook, the ATM machine and the bank statement auspiciously contain a Wells Fargo logo. To suggest that these elements taint the program's effectiveness is absurd. To believe that is to assume that people can't understand that another bank offers similar services.
The Public Interest Research Group claims that allowing this activity in the classroom is "allowing the fox to guard the chicken coup," said Ed Mierzwinski, the PIRG's U.S. Consumer Program Director ("Wells Fargo Bank launches financial literacy program in schools and online," Associated Press, Oct. 31). They certainly must be sly as foxes, sly enough to bring such a wealth of knowledge and pertinent materials to the children in need. But it is far-fetched to suggest that they are licking their lips over the chickens - the children - for great gains in their personal wealth holdings.
When the public school system in the targeted areas offers a program as comprehensive as Wells Fargo's, the critics can start a credible debate. Until then, the option of providing personal finance training over not providing it at all cannot be derailed by opposing voices.
(Matt West's column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at mwest@cavalierdaily.com.)
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