Eric Owens details for Daily Caller readers an Arkansas legislator’s attempt to ensure that students in his state learn a basic skill that should be clear to anyone with a grasp of arithmetic.
Cursive handwriting and diagramming sentences are practically extinct skills among America’s school-aged kids. Other skills including knowledge of basic multiplication tables could soon be endangered.
But now, if Arkansas state Rep. Kim Hendren has anything to say about it, counting out the correct change will be saved from destruction — at least in one lonely state in the union.
The Republican has announced that he will propose a bill mandating that kids in Arkansas public schools learn how to make correct change, reports Little Rock CBS affiliate KTHV.
He said he believes the law is necessary because of information he has gleaned through through old-fashioned retail politics.
“An operator of a sale barn in northwest Arkansas told me: ‘My wife and I went to Sonic the other night bought two drinks for just over three dollars and when the attendant came out I handed a 20 dollar bill to the attendant,’” Hendren explained to KTHV.
“The attendant looked so puzzled, hesitated back and then gave him back $21 in change.”
Hendren said he will make learning how to count correct change part of a broader bill mandating a personal finance curriculum in taxpayer-funded schools.
“Perhaps give them the chance to take a general math course,” he said. “Business math, that’s rigorous, but also includes in that how to make change.”
