I fully support the proposed add-on EPF endorsement and respectfully request that the Virginia Board of Education approve it.  With a PhD in economic education, I can attest to the extensive literature base that suggests many teachers are not prepared to teach economics at the secondary level, both in terms of content knowledge and pedagogical practices that make economics accessible to secondary students, based on correlated student achievement scores and self-identified lack of preparedness.  My add-on endorsement support is also based on my 20+ years of personal experiences and antidotal evidence gathered through delivering professional development programs in economics and personal finance for secondary teachers.  And while university content courses in both disciplines are important, teachers often continue to lack the pedagogical practices necessary in connecting the dots between the content they learned and the realities of making it accessible and relatable to secondary students’ everyday lives.  Therefore, I highly recommend the VCEE Economics Institute and VCEE Personal Finance Institute that strategically feature both content knowledge and pedagogical best practices, which offer added benefits in preparing provisionally licensed teachers for early success in the classroom.