Mount Hebron team wins school's seventh Economics Challenge national championship

Jun. 7—When Vann Prime began teaching at Ellicott City's Mount Hebron High School 18 years ago, he was alarmed by the fact Howard County and Maryland had no economics graduation requirements for students.

"It's really kind of stunning," Prime said. "Frankly, I don't think they should be teaching American government without teaching economics first because it leaves a very skewed concept in kids' minds as they leave high school of what the world is all about."

Prime soon jump-started Mount Hebron's own economics program and in 2009 launched a club that competes in the National Economics Challenge, an annual trivia tournament sponsored by the Council for Economic Education that tests the micro and macroeconomic knowledge of nearly 10,000 students from across the country.

Since its inception, the Mount Hebron team has become an Economics Challenge juggernaut, winning 19 state championships, making 12 national finals appearances and on May 22 winning its seventh national and fifth international title in New York City. The school competes in both the Adam Smith Division for Advanced Placement students and the David Ricardo Division for first-time competitors who have taken no more than one economics course.

"We have quite a reputation for going to nationals," said Mount Hebron junior Satvik Marripalapu, 17, a member of this year's David Ricardo-winning team. "Other teams, when we tell them that we're from Mount Hebron, you can see their faces change. It's all because of our teacher and also just the model that he's put in place for economics."

Mount Hebron sophomore Mehin Pandya said he had no interest in economics upon entering high school. But at the start of this school year, he was one of approximately 30 high-performing students who received invitations to join the economics club and compete for four slots on the entry-level team.

"It's like a sport," said Prime, who added that all Mount Hebron students are welcome to try out for the team along with the invitees. "Since these kids are so active and they participate in everything, you want to be the thing that they choose to do. They really catch the bug."

After listening to a rundown of Mount Hebron's Economic Challenge victories, Pandya was hooked. He spent hours studying for a battery of tests that narrowed down the field to four team members.

"As I actually got more and more into this subject, I realized it was one of the most interesting subjects I've ever encountered," said Pandya, 15. "Everything sort of connected to real-life applications and I was really able to apply the subject to my life, which I hadn't really been able to do with other subjects like math and science."

Aside from better digesting news stories on inflation and unemployment, Pandya soon found himself applying economic principles like opportunity cost to help with day-to-day decisions, like whether to invest an extra hour in studying for a test or playing video games.

"Not only can I relate to headlines in the news, but [economics] really just makes you a more educated and more rational decision maker," he said.

A unique component of Mount Hebron's model is Prime's reliance on juniors and seniors to teach new enlistees like Pandya who have yet to take a high school economics course. Prime says the student-to-student mentoring is a key reason for the team's sustained success.

"For a regular suburban high school to perform so well over so long a time is really an amazing tribute to the kids," Prime said. "At this point the team's almost on autopilot because there is this heritage, this tradition of excelling and every generation passes it down to the next generation."

Since 2011, the Maryland State Department of Education has required school systems to offer some form of financial literacy instruction for grades 3 through 12, but currently only eight of 24 public school districts mandate a personal finance course to graduate. Virginia, by comparison, requires all high schoolers to take a combined economics and personal finance course.

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The Maryland Council on Economic Education, a nonprofit based at Towson University, works to improve economics and finance courses in schools and facilitates the Economic Challenge at the state level to help spur student interest in the field.

"I feel like every major social issue that we face as a community has a basis in poor financial decision making," said Julie Weaver, the council's executive director. "[Economics] is often overlooked and we owe it to our kids to prepare them for life and the best way to do that is to do it in school."

While Howard high schools offer elective economics and financial literacy courses and teach financial literacy as part of a required 10th grade American Government class, Prime would like to see offerings expanded even further.

"Most students have no idea that they're interested in economics until they're exposed to it," he said. "If they don't have the opportunity, it's not an option that enters their head."

After winning last month's finals, which included a televised quiz bowl round, Marripalapu, Pandya and teammates Nate Ritter and Joseph Phelps say they hope to compete in the Adam Smith Division next and study economics in college one day.

While economics seemed daunting at first, Pandya said it helped him understand how policies made in Washington, D.C., or Annapolis are playing out in his own backyard.

"You have to learn the pros and cons of the policy and when you learn the cons, you realize which parties are hurt and then how it affects them on a day-to-day basis," he said. "It makes you more considerate of the people around you."