LANSING – Quick, what’s an ARM, how do you figure your AGI and how do you calculate interest on your savings account?

A new proposal aims to give high school students a better chance to learn the answers as part of the new Michigan Merit graduation requirements.

The proposal by Sen. Michael Switalski, D-Roseville, would count a financial literacy class as a math course under the new requirements.

“I think there’s a heck of a lot of math involved in finance and I think there’s a lot of it people need to know,” he said.

Buying a car or house and having a credit card involve a lot of math and figures, he said.

Though the idea for the legislation arose before the recent sub-prime mortgage crisis, the crisis “only emphasizes how important it is.”

A course like this, Switalski said, would actually interest students. “If they don’t think they have a use for math, what better than to show them how it affects their pockets?”

Sen. Gilda Jacobs, D-Huntington Woods, is the sole co-sponsor of the proposal.

But Judy Wheeler of Berrien County Intermediate School District and president of the Michigan Council of Teachers of Mathematics, said current requirements don’t exclude offering such a course.

“It seems like a nonsense bill. It does nothing,” she said. The math portions of such a class are already a part of algebra I and II, she added.

Lois Gibbons, chair of the Michigan Jump$tart Coalition executive board in Plymouth, also opposes the bill because, she said, a financial literacy course should be required for all students, whether it counts as a math class or not.

The coalition of more than 30 organizations seeks to improve the financial literacy of Michigan’s young adults.

“We feel like it doesn’t matter where it falls. The most important thing is that they have it,” she said.

She cited a 2007 Hartford Financial Services Group survey that found about 70 percent of college students cite their parents as the primary source of financial information, while 76 percent wish they had more help preparing for their financial future.

“We’ve got to teach them. If they don’t know it, they can’t use it,” she said.

Adding to the problem is that teachers are graduating from college without adequate financial knowledge, she said, so “teachers can’t even teach it.”

The coalition plans to meet with the bill’s sponsors to discuss an amendment to allow the course to count as part of the curriculum in more than just one subject area.

Jeff Minore, chief of staff for Switalski, said credit unions have a big presence in K-12 schools, operating about 257 student-run branches, providing some opportunity for financial education.

Through those branches, credit unions offer training to students as part of regular math classes.

Under the Michigan Merit requirements, a student must take four math courses, including algebra I, geometry, algebra II and one additional course to graduate.

The proposal is currently waiting review by the Senate Committee on Education.

By the way, ARM means adjustable-rate mortgage and AGI means adjusted gross income.