For many years, public schools taught "home-economics" -- a combination of instruction in domestic tasks and household book-keeping targetted at young women as preparation to become "homemakers." In response to rapidly changing gender roles and career paths in the 1970s and 80s, some schools sought to "de-gender" home economics by encouraging male students to put on the apron and learn how to bake cookies as well, while others quietly de-emphasized or abandoned "home ec" as a pre-feminist relic.

But ironically, young American men and women need instruction in home economics more than ever. The tools to manage a family's finances and to navigate an increasingly complex economy should be addressed through a reinvented home economics curriculum.

Both private employers and public policy are placing escalating demands on Americans to manage their own financial affairs. This includes not only paying bills and balancing check books, but planning for their children's education, their own (and sometimes their parents') retirement needs, and improving their own job skills.

The success of America's current welfare reform experiment and other efforts to reduce entrenched poverty and dependence will require a quantum leap in the financial management skills of low-income Americans. Millions of low-income Americans currently do not have personal checking accounts, much less access to credit or wealth-building assets. They cannot meaningfully join the mainstream economy unless they have the knowledge and experience to use its most basic tools. Empowering low-income Americans with economic literacy is essential if we are ever to empower them with such key attainments of middle-class life as homeownership.

But economic literacy is not just a problem for the very poor. A survey of consumer credit counselors indicates that many young people, regardless of socio-economic status, are clueless when it comes to the complexities of I.R.A's, mortgages, insurance, and basic estate planning.

Home economics for the 21st century would address all these issues as a basic component of public education, as well as basic preparation for career success and citizenship.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) has taken one step in the right direction by introducing legislation (H.R. 4175) encouraging instruction in entrepreneurship in public schools. Kucinich cites studies showing that about 7 of 10 high school students express interest in starting their own businesses; yet few public schools provide instruction in how to make those dreams come true.

It is time to take the apron off home economics and bring it back as personal economics literacy instruction for a new generation of Americans.