Perspectives
What we believe about money, and why we measure it the way we do.
Financial literacy has been taught as knowledge and tested as recall for forty years. These essays explain why the FLIQ Score reads what a child does instead, one belief at a time, and say plainly what we do not know yet.
Written by Michael Olaiya, founder of WealthWise Kids. One essay every two weeks.
No. 01 · September 20, 2026 · 6 min read
Knowing is not doing
Why we built a measurement instead of a quiz.
Read the essay →
The sentence behind the series
We don’t measure what you know, and we don’t measure your circumstances. We measure how you decide when the circumstances are the same for everyone.
The series, in order
- 01
- 02
Same $100, different child
What the score holds constant, and what it lets vary. Coming
- 03
What a good decision means when every life is different
Whether there is a right answer, and who decides. Coming
- 04
The zip code question
Does circumstance move the score, and should it? Coming
- 05
What we have to rule out
Reading level, age, language, practice effects, gaming. Coming
- 06
Two readings, five weeks apart
Why change is the only number we trust, and what we don’t claim yet. Coming
- 07
What we will never do with a child’s score
No ranking, no placement, no sale, no surprise. Coming
Ground rules for every essay: belief, not method. No invented numbers. A “what we don’t know yet” line in each one.
Michael Olaiya
Founder, WealthWise Kids · creator of the FLIQ Score
Michael Olaiya is the founder of WealthWise Kids, an Atlanta company that builds financial education for kindergarten through twelfth grade, and the creator of the FLIQ Score. He was put on payroll at eleven by the nonprofit that tutored him, co-founded a public charter school in Atlanta, and chaired its board for six years.
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