Do we not do this anymore? When I was in high school almost 40 years ago, there was a class/classes that taught things like balancing a checkbook (go ask your parents), keeping a household budget, how interest works, and the like. I didn't take that class (kinda wished I had), so I don't know what it was called.

If we don't, we should. Especially now that we're all responsible for our own retirement. With nearly every job I've held in the last 20 years, I've been one of the "financial geeks" to ask questions of, and it is astounding the amount of ignorance we collectively have and yet are supposed to understand the shit that gets thrown at us by our 401K plans. I don't blame the individuals for their ignorance, hell, I make a hobby of this stuff and I'm still lost sometimes. But don't just thrown 'em into the deep end, have a class or two in high school because everyone is going to have to deal with some aspect of finances.