News Release
Roosevelt High School Students Win State 'Fed Challenge' Competition
A team of students from Roosevelt High School in Des Moines today won a state-wide competition testing their knowledge of how the Federal Reserve creates policy to foster a strong and stable economy.
The competition, called the "Fed Challenge," was held at the Quality Inn and Suites in Iowa City and included a team from one other Iowa high school.
Winning team members David Drustup, Ian O'Donnell, Andrew Thompson, Sam Wells and Martin Whitman beat a team from Monticello High School. The Roosevelt coach is Jeff Westendorff.
The Roosevelt team will now represent Iowa in the District Fed Challenge championship on April 15, at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. The team will compete against teams from Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin for the opportunity to represent the Chicago Federal Reserve District in the National Fed Challenge competition, which will be held May 14-16 at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington D.C.
Each team is comprised of five or six students. They use their research of existing economic, financial and international conditions to prepare a forecast of the economy to identify potential concerns, and to make recommendations for national monetary policy.
During the competition, the team gives a 15-minute presentation to a panel of judges consisting of economists from the Federal Reserve, the private sector and academia. The judges then question the students about how the Fed creates policy to foster a strong and stable economy.
The competition:
- Provides education on how Federal Reserve policy-makers develop and implement monetary policy that influences the amount of credit and money in the economy.
- Teaches students to conduct economic research, think critically, and make presentations.
- Promotes economics and finance as a career choice.
Preparing for the competition gives students an idea of how economists get ready for a meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, the Federal Reserve group that creates national monetary policy under the guidance of Chairman Alan Greenspan.
