From the
March 7 edition of Education Daily
(www.educationdaily.net):
Counselors
call for greater emphasis in NCLB
By
Sarah Sparks
Staff
Writer
Calls for students to take
more rigorous high school courses have been growing in both the
Education
Department
and Congress, but policymakers
mostly have overlooked the people who must actually implement those reforms: the
school counselors.
As part of the
No Child Left Behind Act's
reauthorization, "They're talking about a lot of stuff that school counselors
are directly involved in: dropout prevention, assessment, college readiness,"
said David Hawkins, public policy
director for the
National
Association for College Admission Counseling.
Yet, "there really isn't much mention of counselors in
NCLB."
NACAC and the
American
School Counselor Association
announced this week a push to get lawmakers to incorporate counselors more
directly in school accountability plans and provide more recruiting and
professional development support for counselors in high-need schools.
As high school reform moves to
the forefront of reauthorization, experts worry there simply aren't enough
counselors to handle the expected workload. ASCA found the ratio of students to
counselors nationwide was 488 to one according to the most recent 2004 data,
nearly double the recommended ratio of 250-1. In California, it reached 966 to
one before legislators voted last year to hire 3,000 new counselors. Counselors
were scarcest in high-poverty, high-minority districts.
"Counselors are really just
trying to keep their heads above water," Hawkins said. "What they really need is
more time with students early on," he said, noting students interested in
science and math fields must begin planning their course loads in middle school.
Priorities
Among the groups' priorities:
 |
Amend NCLB to require
counselor participation in school improvement plan development.
|
|
Appropriate $75 million in
2008 for the
Elementary and Secondary School Counseling Programs,
with a priority for high-need schools. The program cannot be used for
secondary schools unless it receives at least $40 million, and it has been
flat-funded at about $12 million since 2002. |
|
Include, through
reauthorization of NCLB or the Higher Education Act, a national pilot program
to develop and use professional development for counselors on how to guide
at-risk students and their families. The program would take its cue from
existing state programs such as
California's Assembly Bill 1802
and
Pennsylvania's Project 720.
|
|
Pass
S. 611,
the Pathways for All Students to Succeed Act, sponsored
by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.,
which includes counselors in high school reform programs.
|
