Terrible News for Financial Literacy in America: Only 20% of Teachers feel competent to even teach it

Now these are some scary statistics.

Financial education has not been a priority in the U.S. Only 17 states require students to take a high school course in personal finance, and fewer than 20 percent of teachers feel competent to even teach personal finance topics, according to the Council for Economic Education's Survey of the States.

The Council for Economic Education study also found that 72 percent of parents experience at least some reluctance to talk to their kids about financial matters.

All of this is a boon to pay-day lenders, banksters, fraud artists, Congress-critters and other people who make their living on the fact that people don't know crap about money management.