Comprehensive School Counseling Programs Are Essential to Student Achievement and Successful

Comprehensive School Counseling Programs Are Essential to Student Achievement and Successful Postsecondary Transition

Recent developments in technologies have driven worldwide economic changes that demand that all workers have 21st century knowledge and skills in order to be competitive and to manage inevitable life-career transitions. Data trends suggest that today’s students and their parents understand that success in careers of all types now requires more training and education than was demanded of previous generations. The number of students aspiring to postsecondary education has never been higher. Between 1980 and 2002, the percentage of national tenth-graders hoping to complete a bachelor’s degree nearly doubled from 41 to 79 percent, across all ethnic groups. The numbers of students taking the SAT has risen from 8000 in 1926, the first year the SAT was administered, to 1,376,745 in 2006.

Unfortunately, an alarming gap exists between student’s aspirations and their achievements. State and school data trends point out how many students are ill-prepared for post-secondary success. For example, for every 10 students entering 9th grade in the state of Florida, only six will complete high school. Of those six, only three will go onto college and only two will complete a baccalaureate degree program within six years. For those students who do graduate from high school, a vast majority (61%) do not go on to earn a postsecondary certificate or degree within five years, if at all.

The Chicago Public Schools (CPS), the first major school system to track and publicly report the college enrollment patterns of its graduates, document similar outcomes. Mirroring the rising college aspiration rates noted above, nearly 92% of 1999 CPS graduating seniors said they planned to attain a postsecondary degree at a four- or two-year college or vocational/ technical school. However, almost half of the students who enter a CPS high school never make it to graduation. And only one-third of those who complete high school enroll in a four-year college; of the cohort that does enroll in college, just 35% graduate college within six years. Why?

Why did only six percent of the students who started in a CPS high school in the mid-1990s – in a situation that is not unique to Chicago – earn a four-year college degree by the time they were in their mid-twenties? What did or did not occur during students’ high school years that contributed to such dismal postsecondary outcomes? Administrators and educators must work with partners in and outside the school to address this alarming gap between students’ aspirations and their actual educational achievements. Emerging trends suggest that this is best accomplished through a comprehensive school counseling program focused on career development.

The National Leadership Cadre (NLC) is an organization of nine states that supports school counseling reform with a focus on career development. The NLC maintains that graduation and postsecondary placement rates, in addition to other student achievement indicators such as Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) reports and standardized test scores, improve when school administrators implement a comprehensive developmental guidance (CDG) program that aligns with the American School Counseling Association’s (ASCA) National Model and focuses on career development as its ultimate mission.

Implementation must begin at the state level, through leadership and coordination of partnerships comprised of government agencies, state school counseling associations, and institutions of higher education. With state policies, recommendations, and endorsements as necessary leverage, district and local administrators can call upon staffs for similar coordinated implementation of school counseling programs that focus on students’ life career development.

In this accountability-driven era, educational administrators at all levels want to support strategies that improve student outcomes and demonstrate results. Education focused on the life career development of students can be a means to those ends. For example Missouri, one of nine Cadre states, found that high schools implementing the ASCA Model and delivering educational and career planning documented higher gains in meeting AYP benchmarks than their counterparts who did not. In addition, the Missouri study documented better attendance rates, fewer discipline problems and higher math scores on the state assessment test among middle school students.

A Reform Primer for Administrators

School counseling is a profession in transition. Its vocational and career-focused heritage, dating back to the 1900’s, was a response to the economic, educational, and social problems of the time. These same influences are placing enormous demands on schools once again and thus are reshaping the profession. Even service-based employers who need not fear outsourcing are demanding employees with the flexible higher-order thinking skills required to learn and adapt as technology-driven demands change their industries. Working against the demands for such a workforce are alarmingly high dropout and postsecondary remediation rates; deficient math, science and reading skills; and increases in youth risk behaviors and achievement gaps that separate students of color and low-income students from white and more affluent students. In addition to efforts to revise curricula and instruction is a strategy too often overlooked: a well developed and implemented school counseling program driven by needs assessment data and outcomes.

School counselors’ training and skills and their unique role in the school make them ideal coordinators and leaders in implementing a Comprehensive Developmental Guidance program in which all staff play a role. In a comprehensive developmental guidance model, school counselors develop and deliver curriculum and interventions that support life-career development. They collaborate with other educators and business/community partners to ensure that students transition to postsecondary education and the workplace with essential knowledge, attitudes and skills for success. Successful implementation of this model, however, requires that administratorsunderstand the emerging role of school counselors in the 21st century as outlined by ASCA as well as the basic tenets of a comprehensive developmental guidance program.

Triangulated Leadership

Transforming the role of school counselors within the school with a focus on career development requires buy-in and collaboration at all levels. To strengthen the pivotal role that school counselors can play in promoting student achievement and future success, change must take place at the state, district, and school level. The National Leadership Cadre offers the following recommendations:

Leadership at the state level:

Department of Education offices:

designate and publicize a leader or coordinator to support implementation of CDG programs and work in partnership with state agencies, associations, and colleges, universities .
point person to develop state school counseling programs.
mandate development of educational and career plans for all students, K-12.
initiate and nurture partnerships with state school counseling associations and institutions of higher education to develop a state model that includes school counseling curriculum focused on promoting career development and academic achievement.
support professional development of practicing school counselors in order to actualize the Model.
partner within the DOE as well as with other state agencies who are stakeholders in life career development (e.g. Special Education. Career and Technical education, State Departments of Labor, Economic and Workforce Development)
align licensure requirements with state models.
seek grant opportunities to fund state-wide school counseling initiatives that include implementation of new models, implementation of effective practices, and professional development needed for integration of career development and academic achievement.

State School Counseling Associations:

work in partnership with to build good state policy to mobilize their members to fully participate in school counseling reform initiatives.
lead statewide efforts to promote increased attention to career development by school counselors.
lead statewide efforts to promote the integration of school counseling program with state educational reform initiatives.
establish a task force to create a state model that aligns with the ASCA National Model.
sponsor professional development opportunities at annual state conferences
use a state association website to highlight and share best practices in life career development education.

Counselor Education Training Programs:

encourage state school counseling training programs to work with the Department of Education, the state school counseling association, and each other to build good state policy and to promote needed reforms in school counseling preparation.
update the counselor education curriculum to teach best practices in preventative interventions to increase academic achievement and enhance career development.
update the counselor education curriculum to teach best practices in organizing school counseling programs to support student achievement and educational reform.
partner with exemplary school districts to support school counseling innovation and reform.

Leadership at the school district level:

adopt a comprehensive K-12 guidance model with an explicit focus on academic achievement and career development for all students.
promote professional development that will enable school counselors to fully implement this comprehensive guidance model.
hold all schools accountable for creation of impactful educational and career plans for all students.
establish a district wide policy for common planning time, if only during in-service, where counselors can work with teachers and paraprofessionals to analyze needs, data etc.
appoint or support existing district level guidance directors to coordinate linkages between community based organizations, businesses, postsecondary institutions, and regional employment boards

Leadership at the school building level:

connect the school counseling program to the school’s goals in promoting academic achievement, career development, and successful transitions.
restructure school counselors’ time to eliminate non-professional duties to promote the ability of the school counselor to reach all students through classroom, large group, and small group interventions.
provide common planning time on a regular basis.
convey message that career curriculum is important and requires and integrated system-wide approach.
establish and lead a team with representatives from the school counseling, special education, and technology departments to develop the most efficient method to create, store, and access career plans.
work with school counselors to identify times in the master schedule for delivering career guidance lessons at each grade level.
work with school counselors to develop opportunities for parents to give input to their child’s educational/career plan.
send a team of school counselors to visit a school where a successful career planning process is already underway.
allocate necessary funds for purchasing assessment tools and career software.

Endnotes

1 Roderick, M., Nagaoka, J., Allensworth, E. (2006).From High School to the Future: A first look at Chicago Public School graduates’ college enrollment, college preparation, and graduation from four-year colleges. Chicago, IL: Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago.

2 Education Online Search. About the SAT. Retrieved May 5, 2008, from

3 Florida Educational and Training Placement Information Program. Retrieved September 14, 2007, from

4 Chicago Postsecondary Transition Project, From High School to the Future: A first look at Chicago Public School graduates’ college enrollment, college preparation, and graduation from four-year colleges. (2006).

5 Lapan, R., Gyspers, N., Petroski, G. (2001).Helping seventh graders be safe and successful: A statewide study of the impact of the comprehensive guidance and counseling programs,79 (3),320-30. Added