It's time to rethink how we teach children about money.

For all the effort parents put into helping their children understand dollars and cents, and for all the effort schools put into formal lessons in personal finance, most children still grow up into adults who can't properly save, spend and budget.

Now researchers--from psychologists to economists to communications experts--have started asking why. And the one theme that comes out of their research loud and clear is that we're doing it all wrong.

We focus on teaching finance in school when regular math is much more effective at helping children manage money. We cram their heads full of financial facts and strategies years before they'll actually need any of it--ensuring that they won't remember the lessons when they're most needed. And we squirm about discussing our own family income and debt, giving children fears and false impressions they may never shake off.

Here are some of the biggest findings from the research--and advice from educators and researchers--about how we can do better.

Focus on Teaching Math--Not Money

Perhaps the most startling finding is that classroom education in finance often doesn't translate into real-world results.

For decades, studies have extolled the benefits of financial education, pointing out that students who take finance classes score well on tests of financial knowledge--and higher financial literacy leads to better financial behavior.

Conclusions like these have led to a growing consensus that schools should teach children about managing their finances, with 43 states now mandating some kind of training.

Shawn Cole found this troubling. Not because the studies aren't true: Many, he says, do show a correlation between financial education and good financial behavior. But few studies demonstrated a strong causal link.

So, the professor of finance at Harvard Business School wondered, if widespread financial education were really effective, why are so many young people struggling with debt, foreclosure and low asset accumulation? He and a group of researchers set out to find an answer. They looked at the states that mandated personal-finance curriculums in high school, and compared the financial health of students who graduated before the mandates to those who graduated after. Their hypothesis: If personal-finance education worked, the students who graduated after the programs were implemented would be better off financially.

They weren't. After controlling for state, age, race, time and sex, and analyzing a huge pool of historical financial data, the group found that there was no statistically significant difference between people who graduated within a 15-year span either before or after the personal-finance programs were implemented. Graduates' asset accumulation and credit management were the same, with or without mandated financial education.

Control for other variables and the simple correlation disappears.  How many times have we seen that?  What "studies show" ain't necessarily so.

The other take-away lesson here is that what is really important is teaching kids the basics.  That includes math, and it also includes behaving well in society.  School should be a place where kids learn to obey the rules and respect the rights of others.  It should be a place where cheating does not pay and honesty is truly the best policy.  Yes, teachers, policing is part of your job.