Joint Council on Economic Education

An independent, nonprofit organization founded in 1949 to promote and improve the quality of economics education in the United States. Based in New York City, the council maintains centers across the United States to provide instructional materials, consultant services and teacher training workshops. The council’s work is a response to what it perceives as “economic illiteracy” in the United States. According to the council, only about 25% of American secondary schools offer economics courses, which are taken by fewer than 10% of the students in such schools. Overall, fewer than 5% of American high school students ever take an economics course and only half of all social studies teachers have ever taken one or more economics courses.