Results of the National Financial Capability Challenge have been released, and the lesson for Montana is that much work remains to be done to ensure that young Montanans learn the financial literacy skills they need.

Of the 340 students in Montana who took the Challenge—a voluntary online test of personal financial knowledge administered to participating students in conjunction with an instructional program—the average score was 71.9%. This was slightly above the national average of 70%, but still low in terms of the basic knowledge measured by the test.

According to Education Secretary Arne Duncan, “The low scores on these tests show us that, when it comes to financial literacy, we've got a lot more work to do to get our students where they need to be.…I hope teachers, school leaders, and local officials will work together to make financial literacy a priority in every school district in America."

All high school teachers and other educators working with high-school age students were eligible to participate in the Challenge for free, and received an education toolkit to use by itself or to complement other lesson plans.

We thank the 23 educators in Montana who participated in the Challenge for volunteering their time to teach this critical subject, and we encourage other educators to participate in future rounds of the Challenge.

State-by-state statistics may be found here.

Secretary Geithner’s remarks on the results of the Challenge may be found here.

Information on the Challenge may be found here.