March 7 update: 9 a.m.: Due to the winter snowstorm, the Financial Literacy Summit scheduled for today has been canceled. It will be rescheduled for a future date.

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Financial Literacy Summit to Assess Education Policies and Resources in VT

BURLINGTON, VT - Public policymakers, educators, business people and legislators will gather at Champlain College on Monday, March 7 to discuss the state of personal finance education in Vermont and beyond. The daylong event is hosted by Champlain College's Center for Financial Literacy with sponsorship by TD Bank and National Life Group.
John Pelletier, Director the Center for Financial Literacy and a former chief operating officer and chief legal officer at some of the largest asset management firms in the U. S., says a lack of knowledge about credit, investing and financial planning is really at the heart of the recent economic downturn.
The 2011 Vermont Financial Literacy Summit is designed to raise the awareness of and the public policy choices related to personal finance education in Vermont. Participants will be asked to:
• Add their voice to the national, state and local conversation about the need for more financial literacy education.
• Learn what is needed to bring vital education about credit, financial planning, investment and savings into the classroom at all levels of education.
• Be part of planning the next steps to develop and prioritize a multi-pronged approach to improve the financial health of our state and nation.

The free event is by invitation only and runs from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Champlain College IDX Student Life Center in Burlington.

"Together we hope to tap into the collective wisdom of the attendees to gather ideas on how to best bring personal finance education into our schools, colleges and workplaces in effective and efficient ways that will directly benefit Vermont's economic vitality. By doing so, we'll create a model that can be shared with other states and communities across the nation," Pelletier explained.
Among the speakers at the event:
• A message from U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
• Ted Beck, President of the National Endowment for Financial Education and a member of President Obama's Advisory Council on Financial Capability.
• John Gannon, Senior Vice President, Investor Education, FINRA and President of the FINRA Investor Education Foundation.
"The Great Recession demonstrated that our citizens struggle when making complex financial decisions that are critical to their well being. Some of our economic problems were created by bad actors, focused on personal gain, but so many others were created by good people making poorly informed personal financial decisions," Pelletier noted.
The Center for Financial Literacy at Champlain College will tackle those issues using a multi-pronged educational approach, backed with strong financial support from many of Vermont's major financial industry institutions. "We want to develop and prioritize ideas to improve financial literacy education of the entire Vermont population: K-12 students, college students and adults," he said.
The Center for Financial Literacy will also present the results of "Financial Literacy Education in Vermont High Schools: A Snapshot," a statewide survey of schools and how they currently teach financial literacy. Students from the Champlain College Emergent Media Center will also demonstrate a prototype e-game being developed to help teach financial literacy.
"The teaching of personal finance is often an afterthought in schools because it is not a subject tested under the No Child Left Behind law. However, according to Jump$tart USA -- a Washington D.C.-based coalition of organizations interested in advancing financial literacy among students in pre-kindergarten through college -- high school seniors, on average, answered only 48 percent of personal finance questions correctly. We hope the work of the Center for Financial Literacy at Champlain College and the knowledge we gather at this Summit will ultimately result in a roadmap and a strategic plan that will help materially improve Vermont's financial literacy," Pelletier explained.
Both TD Bank and National Life Group and their charitable foundations donated $10,000 each to fund the $20,000 costs associated with holding the Summit.
"Financial education is important to TD Bank because we believe in empowering everyone with the knowledge to live a financially healthy lifestyle, that's why it is an honor to be part of this Summit. We hope to help elevate the public policy discussion further, and share our best practices with Vermont educators," said Philip R. Daniels, TD Bank Market President, Vermont.
The recent financial crisis and lingering recession have exposed behaviors that reveal the low levels of financial literacy across the nation. Mortgage defaults, foreclosure rates, personal credit defaults and bankruptcy rates are at all time highs according to economic experts. "Fifty one percent of adults don't have a rainy day fund; a third of them have not saved anything for retirement; a third have no savings to speak of; and more than a quarter of American adults don't pay their bills on time. These behaviors suggest there is a lot of room for improvement and the place to start is by educating people in personal finance," Pelletier said.
For National Life Group's Christian Thwaites, President and Chief Executive Officer, Sentinel Investment Companies, supporting the 2011 Vermont Financial Literacy Summit directly addresses the state's need to move financial education to the forefront of discussions by business people, lawmakers and educators. "One of the goals of the Summit will be to explore what financial education resources are currently available in our schools, identify solutions and stakeholders and set priorities for moving ahead."
For more information about the Center for Financial Literacy at Champlain College and the Vermont Summit for Financial Literacy, visit www.champlain.edu/cfl.html

10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., IDX Student Life Center, Champlain College, Burlington, Vt.
• Welcome to Champlain College - Dave Finney, President, Champlain College
• Welcome to the Summit - Phil Daniels, Market President, Vermont, TD Bank
• Thank you for Coming to the Summit - Christian Thwaites, President and CEO of Sentinel Asset Management/Sentinel Investments (National Life Group's Asset Management affiliate)
• Review of the Day's Events, Quick Quiz - John Pelletier, Director, Center for Financial Literacy, Champlain College
• Why Financial Literacy is Important to Vermont - Beth Pearce, Vermont State Treasurer
• Message from U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan
• The Importance of Teacher Training on Personal Finance Topics; National and Regional Trends in Financial Literacy - Ted Beck, President, National Endowment for Financial Education
• Luncheon Breakout Exercise: Public policy suggestions for enhancing Financial Literacy from participants at the Summit: K-12, Collegiate, Adult
• Review of Vermont's Results from the National Financial Capability Study and a review of other FINRA initiatives - John Gannon, Senior Vice President, Investor Education, FINRA and President, FINRA Investor Education Foundation
• Review of the Vermont High School Survey on Personal Finance Education and other Vermont financial literacy data - John Pelletier, Director, Center for Financial Literacy, Champlain College
• Champlain College Students present prototype video game concepts for financial literacy education; a Student and Faculty presentation
• The Economic Consequences of Financial Illiteracy - Art Woolf, Associate Professor of Economics at University of Vermont and President, Vermont Council on Economic Education
• Panel Discussion led by Art Woolf on how some high schools have successfully brought personal finance education into the classroom - Dan Hebert, Director of Professional Development Instruction, Regional Director - Northeast, Jump$tart Coalition; Jeanne Collins, Burlington Superintendent ; David Lamberti, Teacher of Economics and Personal Finance at Burlington High School; Teresa Smith, Teacher of Mathematics at Vergennes High School and Steve Orzech, Teacher of Mathematics at Vergennes High School.
• Review of the results from the lunch breakout exercise and closing remarks - John Pelletier, Director, Center for Financial Literacy, Champlain College

TD Bank, America's Most Convenient Bank, is one of the 10 largest banks in the United States, providing customers with a full range of financial products and services at more than 1,250 convenient locations from Maine to Florida. On September 30, 2010, The South Financial Group, Inc. was acquired by TD Bank Group, and its subsidiary Carolina First Bank merged with TD Bank. Carolina First Bank will continue to operate under the trade names Carolina First Bank in North and South Carolina and Mercantile Bank in Florida until conversion and rebranding in 2011. TD Bank is headquartered in Cherry Hill, N.J., and Portland, Maine. Carolina First Bank and Mercantile Bank are trade names of TD Bank, N.A. For more information, visit www.tdbank.com. TD Bank, America's Most Convenient Bank, is a member of TD Bank Group and a subsidiary of The Toronto-Dominion Bank of Toronto, Canada, a top 10 financial services company in North America and one of the few banks in the world rated Aaa by Moody's. The Toronto-Dominion Bank trades on the New York and Toronto stock exchanges under the ticker symbol "TD." To learn more, visit www.td.com.

About National Life Group
National Life Group is a diversified family of financial service companies that has successfully forged a strong identity as a product innovator offering personalized service. Companies in the group offer a comprehensive portfolio of life insurance, annuity and investment products to help individuals, families and businesses pursue their financial goals. National Life Group, a Fortune 1000 company, serves more than 870,000 customers. With 2009 revenue of $1.6 billion and net income of $72.3 million, members of National Life Group employ roughly 900 employees, with most located at its home office in Montpelier, Vermont. Group companies also maintain offices in Dallas, New York, San Francisco, and Philadelphia. The Group is made up of its flagship company, National Life Insurance Company, founded in Montpelier, Vermont in 1848; Life Insurance Company of the Southwest, Dallas, Texas, and Sentinel Investments, Equity Services, Inc. and National Retirement Plan Advisors, all based in Montpelier. To learn more www.nationallife.com

About Champlain College
Since 1878, Champlain College has provided career-focused education to students from its hilltop campus in Burlington, Vt. Champlain's distinctive educational approach embodies the notion that true learning only occurs when information and experience come together to create knowledge. Champlain offers traditional undergraduate and online undergraduate courses, along with online certificate and degree programs and eight master's degree programs. Champlain offers study abroad programs at its campuses in Montreal, Quebec and Dublin, Ireland. Champlain College will be included in the Princeton Review's "best colleges" guidebook, The Best 376 Colleges: 2012 Edition. Champlain was named a "Top-Up-and-Coming School" by U.S. News & World Report's America's Best Colleges and was ranked in the top tier of 2011 Regional Colleges in the North. To learn more about Champlain College, visit www.champlain.edu.