Grant to UMKC will fund local K-12 financial education

Teachers in Kansas City may become better equipped to help their students understand economics and personal finance.

The Cloud L. Cray Foundation, which supports “teaching teachers economics and by doing so improving the economic acuity of the citizens of Northeast Kansas and Northwest Missouri,” has awarded a $425,000 two-year grant to the School of Education at the University of Missouri-Kansas City to support its Center for Economic Education (CEE).

“The UMKC CEE is one of a network of centers across the state and nation that promotes economic and financial education in K-12 schools. The CEE serves the economic education needs of teachers and their students through development and delivery of undergraduate/pre-service teacher training, in-service teacher training, student and community programs and web-based resources and programs,” UMKC said in a press release.

The Cray Foundation has supported the CEE since 1993. Over its lifetime, the CEE has provided training for more than 23,000 teachers, and developed and implemented numerous economic education programs to assist teachers, schools and districts in teaching economics and personal finance.

The CEE’s has worked with Communities in Schools at M.E. Pearson Elementary, Whittier Elementary, Green Works, and The Front Porch Alliance. It also works with the Never Too Young After School Program, a new CCE initiative that prepares trainers for an after-school curriculum focused on economics, personal finance and entrepreneurship in collaboration with KC LINC, Freedom Schools, and individual volunteers.

“I am particularly excited about the after-school program’s potential for future expansion in our urban communities,” Cray Foundation Executive Director Brian J. Watson said.