Because, according to the Foundation, "Day and night kids in America are bombarded with fake news stories, phony websites, stealth marketing campaigns, and online scams. How can those kids learn to make wise decisions about their money and their welfare in that chaotic, deceptive environment?"

And how does that play out once they're adults?

According to data from the Pew Charitable Trust, the "decades-long impact of living life in a sophisticated marketing environment without skepticism and caution" results in some disturbing trends that experts say will probably become worse for today's schoolkids.

First of all, 18–34-year-olds are the first generations with higher levels of debt, poverty and unemployment, and lower levels of wealth and personal income, than their parents or grandparents at 18–34.

In addition, people over 55 have six times the debt their parents did at the same age.

Then there's the paycheck-to-paycheck crowd, with 55 percent of Americans saying they only break even or even spend more than they make each month. And 70 percent of all families say they face financial strain.

At that rate, today's kids will be so mired in debt that they'll never be able to retire.

The report quotes Josh Golin, executive director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, saying, "Starting in preschool, kids are being bombarded with marketing messages. Middle-school kids are spending six hours a day with media, virtually all of it commercially driven."

Golin adds, "Those kids are being asked to form relationships with all types of products. They're being overwhelmed with messages to make them have unthinking brand loyalty to corporations and to the things that they sell."

In addition, the major financial literacy resources currently in use "barely mention the importance of skepticism and caution in life, if they mention it at all," the report adds, quoting Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, saying, "We're depending on businesses that rely on impulse buying and consumer debt to teach us how to be smart about impulse buying and consumer debt. Credit card companies, big banks, and the finance industry would have us rely on them to be our savior from them."