Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Financial literacy leader resigns

Russ Sloan wants the nonprofit state council to reach more public school students. The board chair calls his goal impractical.

By JAMES THORNER
Published February 28, 2006

Russ Sloan retired from the St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce last year to focus on boosting the financial literacy of nearly 3-million Florida public school students.

But just seven months into his gig as president of the Florida Council on Economic Education, Sloan resigned in frustration that the nonprofit wasn't supplying what schools demanded.

Sloan, 67, championed establishing a standardized economics curriculum for the state's 2.8-million public school students but concluded the council's executive committee was opposed.

"I felt I had taken it as far as I could take it," Sloan said from new-found retirement Monday after resigning Feb. 15. "I guess there's always a chemistry you need between the leadership of the board and staff."

Executive Committee chair Dr. Zachariah Zachariah said Sloan was a fine man, but his goal was impractical. Better to push voluntary compliance among teachers than pick a fight with the Legislature, the Fort Lauderdale physician said.

"It would be a major, major problem, and there would be all kinds of lobbying and all kinds of fighting," he said. "We didn't want to get involved in that."

Sloan was hired last year from among scores of candidates after 11 years running the St. Petersburg chamber.

Zachariah and Sloan agree schools are hobbled by a dearth of economics education. The council, formed in 1975 and based in Tampa's Westshore district, is supposed to train teachers. Whoever the council hires to fill Sloan's place will focus on enlisting state universities to bring teachers up to speed in economics.

Sloan expressed frustration that the council had reached only 67,000 of 2.8-million students. He urged his successor to take it further. "It's scary what our kids don't know."

[Last modified February 28, 2006, 00:34:10]