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When it comes to business savvy, 17-year-old Anthony Vasylyuk is likely ahead of many students at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring.

He has a savings account where he puts the money he earns from his job as a lifeguard, money he says will increase after he becomes certified to give swimming lessons. At home, he has the prototype for an invention he is working on: a pouch to place valuables that goes on the front of a baseball cap.

But during a business-simulation exercise in his entrepreneurship class, it is clear that even Vasylyuk has a lot to learn.

When selling his hat pouch to an imaginary shop owner, Vasylyuk lands $250 but puts only $40 into his group's savings account. It's a fateful number, because as part of the simulation, Vasylyuk learns one of his hats is defective and it is going to cost $40 to repair it.

His group's "savings account," which contains the funds used for the business owners' personal expenses, is suddenly empty.

"You can't just put all your money in the business or the money for your personal life isn't going to be there," Vasylyuk, a senior, said solemnly Thursday.

The business-simulation exercise is part of his entrepreneurship class, a required course in Blair's 300-student Entrepreneurship Academy, one of five academies at Blair that allow students to take courses on specific interests they want to pursue in the future.

Vasylyuk's realization might seem like a basic premise of managing money, but his teacher, Kevin Murley, said it is an advanced concept for most students, who are woefully undereducated in personal finance.

"It was an eye opener for me to see what areas they don't understand," said Murley, who has a Master of Business Administration in international business and became a teacher eight years ago after 15 years in the business sector. "A lot of kids don't have an understanding of simple things like discounts and coupons or calculating tips at a restaurant."

High school students who lack "financial literacy," as it is dubbed in education circles, are doomed to become adults who lack financial literacy, Murley said. Yet none of the classes within the Entrepreneurship Academy are required for Blair's 3,000 students to graduate.

High-ranking officials who attended Murley's class Thursday would like to change that, however.

"The fact that people signed financial commitments that they hadn't read or didn't understand the fine print, that they paid too much for their homes," played an "enormous role" in the economic crisis, said Maryland State Comptroller Peter V.R. Franchot (D), who visited Blair's entrepreneurship class Thursday.

Franchot wants Blair's entrepreneurship class to be emulated across the state, and, during Maryland's upcoming General Assembly, he will propose legislation requiring every Maryland high-school student to complete a "financial literacy" course before graduating.

The hope is that educating students on personal finance before they are financially independent will better prepare them for adulthood and even help them teach a thing or two to the adults who are undereducated themselves.

"A lot of your parents have no idea about credit, debit, home-equity loans, ... and they bought homes too expensive to pay for," said Franchot, who lives in Takoma Park.

During the class, Franchot joined Murley in serving as the owners of the imaginary Harry's Wholesalers and Sally's Store, where students bought items to make their imaginary products and then sell them.

When running their imaginary business, the students were unfazed by the presence of the man responsible for handling all of the state's finances, haggling and bartering for every penny.

"You almost have to do nothing with a group of high-school students to get them engaged in the salesmanship aspect," Murley said. "But they're much slower to get their arms around the financial aspect."

The curriculum simulates "A Month in the Life of a Small-Business Owner," and during Thursday's class, the students breezed through two whole weeks. Each day requires a different task, such as buying groceries and clothes or making trips to the wholesaler.

The focus of the course isn't on creating an innovative product; it is on managing time and money. The students must properly allocate all their money for business expenses, personal expenses and savings, or their business, and their imaginary lives, will crumble.

"In most classes they say, ‘You can start a business,'" Blair senior Reuben Wauyo said, using a mocking teacher voice. "But in this class they actually give you the steps."