The report, which is highly regarded by most lawmakers and educators and widely used to measure state and national education levels, found that mathematics proficiency among fourth graders has not substantively improved. The New York Times notes:

Scores increased only marginally for eighth graders and not at all for fourth graders, continuing a sluggish six-year trend of slowing achievement growth since passage of the [No Child Left Behind], which requires schools to bring 100 percent of students to reading and math proficiency by 2014.

The need for effective elementary education and strong economic education across the country remains prevalent. Without basic math skills, it can be almost impossible for young adults to acquire financial literacy and learn how to manage their own money. Not to mention scores of other essential skills like knowing how to calculate interest on a loan or budgeting money for the future. In order to make cost-effective choices in their lives, American consumers must first be provided the fundamental tools for financial literacy. We hope that our nation’s schools recognize the need for qualified educators who can effectively teach math and basic skill sets to students.

Obopay offers a service that links your child to your bank account via a prepaid debit card. Essentially an allowance on plastic, the card allows users to withdraw money at ATMs, send money over the phone, or use it as a charge card (both in stores and online). For a $1.95 monthly fee, parents can control access, monitor spending, reload the cards remotely, and see how your children are budgeting their money.

Similarly, MasterCard’s Facecard works like a bank account on a card. Users can send money to other Facecard users — say, to reimburse a friend for buying your movie ticket — and receive as well (perhaps for mowing a neighbor’s lawn). It can be used for purchases wherever MasterCard is accepted. The fees are higher here: The card itself costs $5, and carries a $3 monthly usage fee for balances under $100. ATM withdrawals are an additional $1.50 a pop.

If your child is a gamer but you are (understandably) reluctant to hand over your credit card, BillMyParents.com is a way for you to exercise oversight as they pay to play. When a child enters his or her account number during checkout, parents receive an email to accept or deny the charge. It also works at affiliate shops on Amazon.com. The drawback: It might encourage kids to overspend, so make sure they discuss purchases with you first.

According to People magazine, Los Angeles County records show she owes more than $1.1 million to creditors:

According to the documents, five different construction companies have filed liens against her home, the largest being $674,043 for “labor and materials … to remodel main house, construct swimming pool, construct foundations for guest house.”

She also owes $252,360.39 in back state taxes and penalties for 2007.

With that, she joins the illustrious ranks of celebrities who have displayed disastrous financial-management skills. Just because you make a lot of it doesn’t mean you’re good with money.

Pam should remember the immortal words of the Notorious B.I.G.: “Mo’ money, mo’ problems.”

Callie Rogers was 16 when she won a jackpot of £1.9 million in Britain’s lottery (equivalent to about $3.1 million in USD). Now she is 22 and has virtually nothing left:

Her winnings have been spent on expensive cars, gifts, loans to family members, four houses she bought and furnished for herself and family members, luxury vacations, plastic surgery, clothing, and partying, as well as a trust fund for her children. “I won’t lie, I’ve blown most of it,” she said. “But do you know what? I don’t care. Because all that money has brought me is heartache.”

Rogers said she had £20,000 in a bank account and “that’s about it.”

A child trust fund set up for her son was “raided” by [her ex-boyfriend], but around £15,000 is left.

Rogers also reports spending an estimated £250,000 ($406,000) on cocaine and says she is seeking therapy for depression.

Had Rogers known that sound planning — not wealth — is the biggest determinant of feeling financially stable, she might be in a better position today. And since we at Econ4U are fascinated by how many lottery winners end up broke, we offer these tips on how not to blow your good fortune should you ever be in such a lucky position.

Want more visualizations? MightyBargainHunters.com has even more ways to wrap your head around that many zeroes:

• $10 trillion in Lincoln cents would make a solid cube over half a mile on a side. This dwarfs the tallest structures in the world.
• $10 trillion in one-dollar bills taped end to end stretch almost 970 million miles. This is five round-trips to the Sun. It takes light almost an hour and a half to travel this distance.
• $10 trillion accumulates over $1 billion in interest per day at 4%.  It accumulates in four seconds more than the average US worker makes in a year.
• $10 trillion would last Montgomery Brewster over 27,000 years, and you could pay off a hundred Dr. Evils with it.

So why is it important to know just how much a trillion dollars is? Because the U.S. National Debt is currently closing in on $12 trillion. Time to begin work on another penny cube!

Some of the tips are obvious: Don’t buy a new car or brand-name groceries, turn off your lights when you leave the room, cancel your cable to save money, etc. And sometimes it seems like a requirement among personal-finance columnists to mention the $4 latte.

Just about everybody already knows these things. But what are some of the more insidious money pits? We offer these from our archives:

• Credit cards that offer rewards frequently mean an annual fee and higher interest rates than cards that do not — and if you carry a balance, you’re probably spending more than you’re receiving back in perks.
• If you wait until your 30s to open that retirement account, you’re losing out on potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in compounded interest. That’s a lot of lattes you could be drinking in retirement.
• Having a baby is expensive. Having 14 babies is really expensive. Be sure you’re financially stable before you start a family.
• Living in a state with a huge budget shortfall inevitably means you’ll pay higher taxes than if you choose to live elsewhere. (Here’s looking at you, California and New York.)
• Taking on student loans that exceed 15 percent of your gross earnings is a recipe for long-term debt. Something to consider before you pursue that MFA.

In Missouri, the Boys and Girls Club of West Central Missouri puts financial lessons into practice with its “club bucks” program.

The members get “club bucks” for attending different programs throughout the week, then receive an itemized paycheck. To cash the checks, they must fill out a deposit slip at the club’s bank, and may then spend the bucks at the club store, open once a week, or buy time on a computer or play the Nintendo Wii.

The program coordinator noted that the teens in the program are at “a very impressionable age.” Some teens participating in the program said that it was difficult to save the “club bucks” and that the program is teaching them what they will have to do when they are older.

As we have reminded readers time and time again, it’s never too late to talk to kids about learning how to manage money. Kudos to the educational institutions and community groups across the U.S. who are giving kids a head start for their future finances!

Buying an occasional lottery ticket for fun isn’t a terrible idea. At least if being virtually guaranteed to lose is your idea of a good time. After all, it’s pretty much like making a non-tax-deductible donation to the government, and if you only buy one or two every few weeks then you aren’t spending too much anyway.

But what happens if you’re lucky enough to win? The Seattle Times had an interesting article yesterday with tips on what to do if you pick the right numbers. (The Times’ tips also largely apply to those fortunate enough to receive a windfall inheritance.) Surprisingly, many of the tips are good advice even for people who aren’t absurdly lucky:

Keep an emergency fund:

“One of the first things we recommend has nothing to do with investing at all,” said Dan Keady, director of financial planning for TIAA-CREF, which helps teachers, professors and doctors manage their money. “It is creating an emergency fund of six to 12 months.”

Once you have an investment strategy, you don’t want to disrupt it by constantly pulling funds to cover out-of-the-ordinary expenses. An emergency fund, usually with cash in money markets and other conservative, easily accessed accounts, helps investors navigate the unexpected.

Invest your money into a balanced portfolio, even if that means adding risk:

Investing is an individual exercise. Everybody has different goals, time horizons and tolerance for risk. About the only thing that is constant is the need for diversification, putting money into several kinds of investments to hedge against losses in any one.

Coming in to money will change your lifestyle, tax bracket, and investment strategies overnight. And if you allow the exuberance of winning the lottery (or pain of losing a loved one) to cloud your judgment, you could lose it all. And as this Bankrate.com article points out, losing it all after winning big is not uncommon:

Missourian Janite Lee won $18 million in 1993. Lee was generous to a variety of causes, giving to politics, education and the community. But according to published reports, eight years after winning, Lee had filed for bankruptcy with only $700 left in two bank accounts and no cash on hand.

So if you’re dumb enough to play the lottery but lucky enough to win, first “time a timeout” and don’t make any rash decisions, and then hire the right professionals to make sure you don’t wind up penniless.

A CEEL survey conducted in December of 2008 found that a majority of those surveyed were unable to answer simple questions about borrowing, interest rates and even basic math. Our survey was referenced this week in the Triangle Business Journal in North Carolina, the Baltimore-Washington Corridor Business Magazine, and on the MSN.com Money Blog as widespread media coverage of the economy and of tighter regulation on the financial industry continues.

While some may be unknowingly hit by overdraft fees and increases in bank and credit card rates, a majority of consumers can prevent unnecessary charges from their financial institution by taking the time to read the fine print, assess their financial options, and keep within a budget.

Our culture often glorifies financial success, but it is an illusion to think that, just because you’ve made money, you’re set for life. Highly paid and visible sports stars and entertainers seem especially prone to dramatic financial setbacks (perhaps because their money problems are more likely to end up in the news). But surely everyone knows someone who has suffered similar misfortunes.

There are tried and true ways to avoid such a fate, starting with the simple maxim to live within your means. Yet most, if not all, of the Madoff victims no doubt thought they were. Their mistake was assuming they could trust someone else to manage all their money for them. Mr. Madoff is fortunately an extreme exception. Yet the financial crisis has unmasked a plethora of examples of firms putting their interests above their clients, some of it criminal, most of it not.

The vast number of financial advisers and money managers rightly pride themselves on their integrity and devotion to clients’ interests, and render valuable services to their clients. Almost everyone can benefit from such a relationship. But no one should abdicate all responsibility for investing and monitoring their hard-earned savings. Simple diversification would have prevented any of Mr. Madoff’s victims from losing everything. The basics of personal finance aren’t all that complicated. Why isn’t such a course offered, at least as an elective, at every high school in the U.S.?

Until we address the fact that tens of millions of Americans lack the basic financial literacy they need to manage their own money, the Bernie Madoffs of the world are going to keep stealing it from them. Read the whole column here.