SAN FRANCISCO – June 9, 2005 –Visa USA and the Future Business Leaders of America-Phi Beta Lambda, Inc. (FBLA-PBL), today, announced the winners of the third annual Practical Money Skills for Life Educator Challenge.

The Practical Money Skills for Life Educator Challenge recognizes high school educators for creatively and effectively teaching financial literacy lessons and whose classes demonstrate a mastery of personal finance knowledge.

“Sponsoring the Practical Money Skills for Life Educator Challenge with FBLA has given us the chance to recognize teachers who are making a significant impact upon their students’ futures,” said Rosetta Jones, vice president, Visa USA. “We commend these exceptional teachers for successfully engaging their classes in learning financial skills that will be critical throughout their lives.”

"We congratulate all of the teachers who participated in this year’s Educator Challenge. Their expertise and creative approach to teaching the basics of money management will help prepare young people to be financially responsible adults,” said Jean M. Buckley, President and CEO of FBLA-PBL. “It is our hope that their commitment will encourage more teachers to integrate these important lessons in the classroom.”

The winners of the 2005 Practical Money Skills for Life Educator Challenge include:

Grand Prize Educator: Karen Sheely, South Western High School, Hanover, PA

First Prize Educators: Dawn Kosko, Absegami High School, Galloway Township, NJ;
Kimberly McLarry, Dr. Ralph H. Poteet High School, Mesquite, TX

Honorable Mentions:

"This annual competition is a unique opportunity for teachers to demonstrate some of the best practices of teaching money skills,” said Educator Challenge judge Joseph Jones, III, Assistant Superintendent for Academics at the Northern Burlington County Regional School District of New Jersey. “It is certainly a valuable program that benefits teachers and students."

Teachers registered for the Practical Money Skills for Life Educator Challenge on www.practicalmoneyskills.com. Classes were judged on the following criteria that evaluated both the teaching skills employed and the students’ results:

The top winner, Karen Sheely, will receive a personal computer, a year-long classroom subscription to USA Today, a school or class computer lab, a speaking opportunity at an educational seminar, a position on Visa’s Practical Money Skills Educator Advisory Board and a $2,500 gift certificate to a leading online merchant that can be used for books and classroom supplies. The two first place educators, Dawn Kosko and Kimberly McLarry, will receive a personal computer, a $1,000 gift certificate for books and classroom supplies and a position on Visa’s Practical Money Skills Educator Advisory Board. The seventeen Honorable Mention winners will receive a certificate of participation and be featured on www.practicalmoneyskills.com.

The Practical Money Skills for Life Educator Challenge is part of Visa’s ongoing effort to improve the financial literacy of young people. Practical Money Skills for Life, Visa’s free, online personal finance curriculum for all ages, gives educators the tools they need to teach practical money management lessons in their classrooms. It is complete with lesson plans broken down by age group, presentation materials, in-class activities, quizzes and more. It’s also mapped to state educational standards ensuring that activities not only teach important life skills but also keep classes on target to meet state requirements.

About Practical Money Skills for Life
The Practical Money Skills for Life curriculum is teacher tested and teacher approved. At the 2001 National Education Association Expo, teachers graded and evaluated the program. Nearly 100 percent of teachers who reviewed the website approved of it; 98 percent said they would recommend the site to other educators; and 94 percent gave the program a "B" or better. The curriculum currently reaches 2.5 million teachers, 37 million students, and 100,000 schools. Additionally, this program won the National Association of Consumer Agency Administrators 2002 Achievement in Consumer Education Award (ACE) for the best innovative program for the private sector and was named an “Honorable Mention” by the Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy’s 2002 Soaring$tar Award.

About Visa
Visa USA is the nation's leading payment brand and largest payment system, enabling banks to provide their consumers and business customers with a wide variety of payment alternatives tailored to meet their evolving needs. Visa USA is committed to increasing the choice, convenience, acceptance, and security of Visa payments for all stakeholders in the payments systems - Members, cardholders and merchants. Through its 14,000 Member financial institutions, more than 463 million Visa-branded cards have been issued to cardholders in the United States. Last year, U.S.-based financial institutions relied on Visa's processing system, VisaNet, to facilitate $1.3 trillion in transactions with virtually 100 percent reliability.

Worldwide, cardholders in over 150 countries carry more than 1 billion Visa-branded cards, accounting for more than $3 trillion in annual transaction volume.

Visa offers a trusted, reliable and convenient way to access and mobilize financial resources - anytime, anywhere, anyway.

About FBLA-PBL
Future Business Leaders of America-Phi Beta Lambda, Inc. is a nonprofit 501(c)3 student business organization with a quarter million members in 12,000 high school and college chapters worldwide. Its mission is to bring business and education together in a positive working relationship through innovative leadership and career development programs. FBLA-PBL was developed as an enhancement to the traditional classroom educational model. Its vision is to be the premier career student association helping an ever-increasing number of business students reach their full potential. Participation in FBLA-PBL can have a direct impact on the course and success of a young person’s career. Some four million plus students have learned, through active membership in FBLA-PBL, about the world of business and what is expected of them in the workplace and as entrepreneurs.

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