Skip to main content
In 2023, Oregon lawmakers passed Senate Bill 3, which required high schools to teach students financial literacy and career skills, such as how to interview for a job.
The bill, developed by the GoWest Credit Union Association and chief-sponsored by Senate President Rob Wagner (D-Lake Oswego) and Senate Minority Leader Tim Knopp (R-Bend), attracted bipartisan support and passed both chambers easily. It requires students to earn one half-credit in each of the two subject areas in order to graduate, effective Jan. 1, 2027. The impact of the bill: Oregon would rise from a C on national report cards measuring financial literacy to an A, according to a national survey.
After the bill passed, interested parties and the Oregon Department of Education, as is customary, engaged in a rulemaking process to clarify how the new law would work.
Former state Sen. Rick Metsger (D-Welches) lobbied for the bill on behalf of Oregon State Credit Union. Metsger says the rulemaking process resulted in rules instructing school districts to adopt new courses with personal finance and career skills as their foundation.
In a Feb. 27 opinion, the Legislative Counsel’s Office told state Sen. Kim Thatcher (R-Keizer) that the new courses should be foundational rather than layered into existing ones.
“I believe the primary focus of the course would need to be higher education and career path skills or personal financial education in order to satisfy the credit requirements,” senior deputy legislative counsel Hannah Lai told Thatcher. “Adding layers related to higher education and career path skills or personal financial education to an existing course most likely would not satisfy the legislative intent of providing that specialized instruction.”
Metsger says he and other supporters of the bill expected that the final rules presented to the State Board of Education for approval on April 18 would reflect that Legislative Counsel opinion. Such rules embodying that option were posted last week.
But when the Department of Education released the agenda and board packet for the April 18 meeting earlier this week, it contained two options: the rules posted last week that comported with what proponents and the Legislative Counsel said was lawmakers’ intent (option B); and a second option that would, in effect, do what the Legislative Counsel said it shouldn’t: integrate the new requirements into existing courses (option A).
Metsger, who served 12 years in the Oregon Senate before President Barack Obama appointed him to the National Credit Union Administration in Washington, D.C., knows his way around legislation. The last-minute change has him seeing red.
“It appears ODE is attempting an end run around the Legislature when it comes to ensuring a stand-alone course offering a robust, comprehensive semester of financial education instruction to help our children succeed when they graduate,” Metsger says. “Anything less not only violates legislative intent as well as the actual language of the bill; it would also be a dead-of-night move to thumb the nose at legislative leadership, which worked collaboratively with the Department of Ed and education administrators to craft a bill on which we could all agree.”
The GoWest Credit Union Association, in a letter submitted for tomorrow’s meeting, urged the board to stick with lawmakers’ intent.
Marc Siegel, a spokesman for the Department of Education, says there’s nothing amiss.
“At the State Board of Education meeting on April 18, an overview of Senate Bill 3 will include two possibilities for implementation that have been explored through several months of stakeholder engagement,” Siegel says. “Both of the options provide students with the opportunity to complete a 0.5 credit of higher education and career path skills and a 0.5 credit of personal financial education, as required by SB 3.”
Siegel says giving the board two options “reflects feedback received throughout engagement during the public rulemaking process.” (In their comments posted late Wednesday afternoon, three major education groups said they “strongly recommend” the option Metsger and other advocates of SB 3 dislike: the one that would provide districts maximum flexibility but would not build new courses around financial literacy and career skills.)
Siegel adds that whatever happens at tomorrow’s board meeting won’t be the final word. “ODE will continue to receive and consider public input between the first and second reading of the draft rules,” Siegel says. “The State Board of Education will consider adoption at the May or June state board meeting.”