Bad news for our country's future: According to a piece in today's Wall Street Journal, most high school kids aren't too sharp on the economics front: "On a zero-to-300 point scale, 12th graders had an average score of 150 points in the first-ever economics test administered under the federal government's National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP."

Some of the statistics:

60% could identify factors that lead to an increase in the national debt. That might sound good, but take a look at how the question was phrased:

Suppose that the federal government initially has a balanced budget. Which of the following changes in government tax revenues and expenditures over time will definitely lead to an increase in the national debt?

A) Increase (to revenues); no change (to expenditures)

B) Increase; decrease

C) Decrease; increase

D) No change; decrease

The answer is C. I'm surprised that only 60% could figure out that a decrease in revenue and increase in spending would lead to an increase in debt.

32% of the students could identify how investment in education can affect economic growth.

11% could analyze how a change in the unemployment rate affects income, spending and production.

What's a shame is that I really believe that economics could be made into the most interesting high school class if it was approached with creatitivity. In recent years, there have been a slew of amazing books on economics: Freakonomics, The Undercover Economist, Travels of a T-shirt in the Global Economy, etc.

I bet that if schools ditched traditional textbooks and adopted a more user-friendly format, we would see these numbers skyrocket. People learn better when they're not bored.