THIS YEAR, Townsend Harris won an award for being the top mid-sized high school in the country for its extensive achievement on a Financial Literacy Certification Test.

The program is run by an organization called W!SE (Working in Support of Education).  It consists of a pre-test and post-test administered by W!SE. The curriculum is taught in the senior Economic classes. The success of the program is measured by the results on the post-test.

Although the test is not required by the New York State Department of Education, Townsend Harris seniors have taken it every year since 2007.  This year, the school earned the top spot for mid-sized schools and the seventeenth spot nationwide for all school types.

According to Dr. Steinmann, “Schools that take [the Financial Literacy Test] have an opportunity to prove how well their students do on the test.”

AP U.S  History and AP Macroeconomic teacher Ms. Baranoff mentions, “We have almost 100% of students passing the post-test each year.”

For the past several years, THHS has been ranked as one of the top high schools teaching personal finance.

According to Ms. Baranoff, “The program has value because it teaches students skills that they will take with them to college and beyond such as how to create a budget, how insurance works, how credit/ credit cards work, and how to write a check.”