Transforming school counseling: a national perspective

Theory Into Practice, Summer, 2002 by Patricia J. Martin

EACH ONE OF US HAS THE RIGHT and responsibility to assess the roads that lie ahead and those roads of which we have traveled. And if the future road looms ominous and unpromising and the roads back uninviting, then we need to gather our resolve and carrying only the necessary baggage, step off that road to a new direction. (Angelou, 1993)

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The mission for schools in the 21st century focuses squarely on effective teaching and learning. Standards-based education reform, with a relentless call for accountability and increased academic achievement for all students, comes at a time of booming technological advances and rapidly changing diversity in the composition of U.S. schools. The convergence of these forces, coupled with a critical look at school counseling at the close of the 20th century, provided a perfect opportunity for re-thinking, re-framing, and transforming the role of school counseling in American schools.

In 1996 the Education Trust, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit organization, with support from the DeWitt Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund, launched a five-year, multistaged national initiative for transforming school counseling. The Trust made public glaring points of disjunction in the theory being taught and the practice actually needed to help students, especially low-income and minority youth, improve academically in schools.

The findings of this initiative became the impetus for seeking and developing the fundamental changes needed to bring the work of school counselors into alignment with the mission of schools for the 21st century. Change for school counseling is not optional--it is mandatory for school counseling to survive in the rapidly changing environment of K-12 schools.

In this article, critical findings are shared about the status of school counseling in the nation, the gap between preparation and practice, and how the work of school counselors needs to connect to student achievement and education reform. It is these findings that were used to develop a framework for change in the field of school counseling.

Background Information

The Transforming School Counseling Initiative (TSCI) was implemented at the Education Trust with the express goal of encouraging the creation of new model programs for the pre-service training of school counselors. The purpose of these newly designed programs was to prepare graduates to serve as student advocates and academic advisors who demonstrate the belief that all students can achieve at high levels on rigorous, challenging academic course content. To launch this ambitious initiative, the Trust spent time in schools and communities across the country talking with school counselors, counselor educators, principals, teachers, parents, students, and other stakeholders.

To accomplish the goal of developing new graduate-level school counseling preparation programs, the Education Trust set out to (a) assess the status of school counseling in the nation; (b) develop a plan for the reform of graduate-level preparation programs; (c) select six higher education institutions with K-12 school district partners to develop and implement new models for training school counselors; and (d) produce a plan for transforming the school counselor preparation programs in the nation.

The initiative purposefully concentrated on the actions of school counselors and the graduate-level preparation they received. The overarching purpose of the initiative was to open academic doors to all students, especially poor and minority students, so that these young people would be able to unconditionally participate in the complex technological economy of the 21st century.

Why focus on school counselors?

School counselors are in a critical position to focus on issues, strategies, and interventions that will assist in closing the achievement gap between low-income and minority students and their more advantaged peers. Low-income and minority students continue to leave school prior to graduation in alarming proportions, not because they are unable to succeed, but because they are underchallenged academically and are placed disproportionately in special education and low-level, remedial classes.

Low-income and minority students are most likely to be taught by the least skilled teachers. Their schools are also more likely to have fewer instructional resources, including up-to-date textbooks and laboratory equipment. In multiple ways, too many school administrators, teachers, and school counselors demonstrate by their actions that they hold low expectations for these students. Added to this conundrum is the fact that low-income and minority students often see no connection between what is being taught in school and a better future for themselves. The school counselor interventions needed to help these students connect school preparation with future career options is critical for the new millennium.

In some schools, despite often dire neighborhood conditions, low-income and minority students are succeeding at high levels. These are schools where all students are held to high academic standards, pushed to stretch and achieve, and given support throughout this process. In these schools there are significant adults who believe that low-income and minority students can succeed and who, through advocacy and action, create conditions to support this belief.