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About

About CENTS

Campaign for Early Numeracy, Teaching, and Savings. A nonpartisan, youth-powered research campaign on financial education before ninth grade.

Last reviewed: 2026-10-16

What CENTS is

CENTS began in 2026. It reads what state laws and academic standards say about financial education before ninth grade, collects what school districts report about it, and publishes the findings with the source for every claim, so that anyone can check them. It also helps young people investigate their own school districts.

CENTS is a campaign, not a registered nonprofit or lobbying organization, and it handles no money. It describes what the law says and does not endorse candidates, parties or bills.

Why before ninth grade

Financial education is often discussed as a high school subject, but what students learn earlier shapes what they can do later. Our review asks one question of each state: what do the law and standards say about kindergarten through eighth grade?

Among the 45 of 51 jurisdictions with a confirmed status, 35 require a financial literacy course or credit to graduate from high school, 12 have a requirement that reaches at least one grade before ninth, 6 have a requirement that names no grade, 23 have K-8 standards that describe what could be taught without saying it must be, and 4 have a high school requirement but no requirement for any grade before ninth and no K-8 personal-finance standards found. 6 are still under review. Explore the data.

The research

State-by-state review
Law, rules and standards for all 51 jurisdictions (50 states and DC), each claim with an exact excerpt, a citation and a retrieval date. See the methodology.
North Carolina records audit
A public-records request to every North Carolina school district about the K-8 financial education it provides, with the replies published. See the audit.
Open dataset and corrections
The state dataset is free to download, and errors are corrected in public. See data and downloads and corrections.

What it has done

  • Reviewed 51 jurisdictions against primary sources, and confirmed a status for 45.
  • Asked all 115 North Carolina school districts about K-8 financial education; 49 sent a reply (replies reviewed through September 8, 2026).
  • Published the open dataset (Data version 2026.10.19.5 · October 2026) and a public log of 1 correction to district records.

What comes next

These are goals, not services that exist today.

  • A network of students, ages 13 and up, who document what their own districts report. The interest form is open and no delegates are confirmed yet. See how participation works and governance.
  • Wider access to the private researcher portal. It is an invite-only pilot today, with training, a qualification task and a review step for evidence records.
  • District records beyond North Carolina, as participants document them and the evidence is verified.

Contact

To report an error, use corrections. You can also use the contact form.

Updates and data posts on (@centscampaign).