School counselors: becoming key players in school reform.

School reform has moved to the forefront of public issues as stakeholders throughout the United States increase the emphasis on raising the educational achievement of all students. At the same time, the cost of doing business in education continues to out-distance increases in funding, forcing school officials to examine the cost-benefit ratio of all school programs in efforts to reduce expenses. Not surprisingly, school counselors and school counseling programs are increasingly being scrutinized by school boards and administrators to determine their effectiveness in meeting the overall objectives of schools (Fields & Hines, 2000). Despite the national call to enhance educational opportunities for all students, school counselors are too often seen as ancillary to the mission of schools and are not included as an integral part of standards-based school reform (Anderson & Reiter, 1995; Fields & Hines, 2000; House & Martin, 1998).

School counselors and what they do are topics that are conspicuously missing from discussions of school reform and from initiatives designed to support all students in successfully achieving high academic standards. The omission of school counselors from school reform efforts is an enormous mistake, especially when school counselors hold the keys to many students' dreams and aspirations. Opportunities for fulfilling these aspirations, especially for poor students and students of color, are almost always inextricably linked to the course of study they follow in school. The lack of proactive efforts to get students into a rigorous curriculum and support them once there can be a huge barrier to being successful in an increasingly demanding workplace (Schneider & Stevenson, 1999).

This article presents the view that school counselors must be proactive leaders who are effective collaborators in advocating for the success of all students. Closing the existing achievement gap between poor students and students of color and their more advantaged peers is the focused mission of schools today (The Education Trust, 1996; 1999; Elam, 1993). School counselors need to be integral players in closing this gap by assisting schools in helping all students gain access to rigorous academic preparation that will lead to greater opportunity for all students. By helping students gain access to these rigorous courses, school counselors will promote equity for all students--especially those not currently served. Working in this way, school counselors will help those who have traditionally been the least served by schools become better prepared for the future.

The Call for Change

Educational equity in a democratic society requires that all children have equal access to quality teaching and a rich curriculum (Elam, 1993). Moreover, all students deserve to receive the support necessary to succeed academically and to be prepared to select from a wide array of postsecondary options upon graduation. However, data from state and local educational agencies show repeatedly that economically disadvantaged students and students of color are systematically denied the kind of education that leads to success in the marketplace (The Education Trust, 1999). The gap that separates poor students and students of color from other young Americans is wide and getting wider. Although the 1970s and 1980s saw progress in narrowing the gap, by 1990 the achievement gap began to widen again and continues to grow wider (Jencks & Phillips, 1998; National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2001; Reyes, Wagstaff, & Fusarelli, 1999; The Education Trust, 2001). More African-American and Latino-American students are graduating from high school and entering college, but often these high school diplomas are of limited value (Lomotey, 1990; Reyes, Scribner, & Paredes Scribner, 1999; Shujaa, 1994; Valenzuela, 1999). This is supported by the fact that the proportion of African Americans and Latinos earning a college degree has barely changed in more than 2 decades (NCES, 2001). Thus, many poor students and students of color leave high school, if they even make it through, without the skills and knowledge necessary to enter, or be successful, in college or the workplace (Darling-Hammond, 1998; Moses, 2001; Shujaa, 1994).

Poor students and students of color have a greater need than their more advantaged peers for caring and committed adult advocates and mentors in school settings because they often lack family and community members who can adequately fill these roles. Also, their families and communities have a long history of being marginalized, with little success in ameliorating the negative impact that bureaucracies like schools can have on individual lives (Lomotey, 1990; Valencia, 1997; Valenzuela, 1999). In spite of dire circumstances that often surround their communities, some schools that serve both low-income students and students of color succeed in equipping their students with high-level academic skills (Ladson-Billings, 1994; Reyes, Scribner, et al., 1999; Scheurich, 1998). Invariably, 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 neither the amount of money their parents make nor the color of their skin should consign students to limited future opportunities. These caring adults, through advocacy and active concern, create conditions that support this belief. School counselors are ideally positioned in schools to carry out this function, but typically do not. Instead, school counselors often function more as gatekeepers than as advocates for the students they serve (Hart & Jacobi, 1992; House & Martin, 1998).

Do School Counselors Make a Difference?

Based on our experience, little has changed in the past 10 years. However, it is our contention that what school counselors do or fail to do are key factors affecting the future of many students. Begin by listening to the litany of horror stories that can be heard in almost any gathering where individuals talk about their experiences with school counselors. Often when we have been in any group of five or more adults over 30 years old, we have found that there will be at least one person (usually more) still harboring distrust and angry feelings about the guidance, or the lack of it, they received from their school counselor. When asked about their experience, they offer troubling responses that are actually life defining for young people. Adults typically recall that their school counselors told them things like "they would never be able to go to college," or "they would not be successful in a rigorous class like Algebra or Chemistry," or "they should take vocational courses to get a job." While telling their stories, these adults passionately point to the fact that their counselors, and often teachers and administrators alike, did not believe in them, had very low expectations for them, and behaved toward them in ways that supported this lack of belief. For a significant number of these adults, having been "tracked" into low-level courses that ill prepared them to be successful continues to serve as a barrier to better jobs, promotions, and comfortable earnings for themselves and their families.

Understandably, educators will say that they cannot do everything without the committed support of families and the larger community. And, counselors will respond that they cannot meet the needs of every student or that sometimes their assessment of the students' performance was accurate and that such realistic appraisals were sufficient to actually motivate students to achieve beyond their own expectations. But the record of success for poor students and students of color, when compared to that of their advantaged peers points clearly to a systemic disparity in the prospects of success for all children.

Research documenting that students are more academically successful in schools as a result of school counselor action is; limited (Whiston & Sexton, 1998). Instead, there is some evidence that students are negatively impacted as the result of counselor inaction. Schneider and Stevenson (1999) found that high schools that did not support students in planning for their futures were more likely to have students who underestimated the amount of education they would need to realize their occupational aspirations. Blustein, Phillips, Jobin-Davis, Finkelberg, and Roarke (1997) found similar results when examining the low satisfaction of recent high school graduates who had negative experiences with high school counselors. And, in other reports it was found that students of color, low-income, and rural students appeared to have little access to guidance and counseling services in their schools (Commission on Precollege Guidance and Counseling, 1986; Lee & Ekstrom, 1987).

There is some support suggesting that comprehensive counseling programs can make a significant contribution to student academic success (Commission, 1986; Gerler, 1985; Lapan, Gysbers, & Petroski, 2001; Myrick, 1987). Indeed, high quality counseling programs have been shown to have a positive effect on student social and emotional development (Gerler, 1985) and their academic achievement and career development (Evans & Burck, 1992; Lapan, Gysbers, Hughey, & Arni, 1993).

From reviewing the literature, we conclude that viable school counseling programs have the potential to assist students in school success, but there is limited evidence supporting this premise (Dahir, Sheldon, & Valiga, 1998). Indeed, we see little evidence that other educators are convinced of the efficacy of effective school counseling programs. We conclude that what school counseling programs can contribute to the success of all students has not been successfully translated to other educators, and thus they do not recognize the potential for school counselors as key players in educational reform efforts. We also conclude that poor school counseling programs and poor counselors actually constitute a serious impediment to student success. In fact, given their strategic position related to the overall development of students, it stands to reason that, when isolated by being left out of school-wide changes, school counselors can literally undo the effects of efforts to meet higher academic standards.

Defining the Role of School Counselors

According to the American School Counselor Association (ASCA, 1996), "the role of school counselors remains unclear in many school districts" (p. 3). School counselor tasks, expectations, and demands vary from state to state, district to district, and school to school. Typically, school counselors are simply told what to do by administrators who are more concerned with local expediency than professional priorities for counselors (House & Martin, 1998). Frequently, local communities determine what becomes systematized practice. It is common for parents to make efforts to ensure that such programs as relaxation training, self-esteem enhancement training, or other humanistic interventions not be used with their children (Eriksen, 1997).

When counselors fail to define their role to fit within the mission of the school and community, school administrators, parents with special interests, teachers, or others may make their agenda the counselor's priority (Campbell & Dahir, 1997). Without a designed program, clear mission, and identified role or vision, counselors function at the discretion of others rather than from a well-conceived effort that addresses the needs of all students (Borders & Drury, 1992; Gysbers & Henderson, 2000; Paisley & Borders, 1995). Developing and implementing counseling programs designed to enhance student achievement would be a direct way of tying school counseling to the mission of schools and clarifying the role of school counselors (Gysbers & Henderson, 2000; 2001).

School Counselors Can Be Integral to Student Success

Leaving school counselors out of school reform efforts may be one of the most serious mistakes that reformers make if the goals for K-12 education are to be attained in this new century. Accountability for student achievement has traditionally been seen as the responsibility of teachers, administrators, and central office personnel who are in charge of curriculum and instructional programs. In reality, accountability for school success is everyone's responsibility and also includes school counselors, psychologists, social workers, staff, students, parents, business people, and the community.

Systemic change in the education of all students will not occur without the sustained involvement of all the critical players in the school setting, including school counselors. Critically, two of the major obstacles to implementing a standards-based educational system are connected directly to the work of school counselors. These obstacles are: (a) low expectations, specifically the pervasive belief that socioeconomic status and color determine young people's ability to learn; and (b) the sorting and selecting process that acts to filter out "less competent" students by denying them access to rigorous course content necessary to advancing through the curriculum (The Education Trust, 1996; 1999).

We believe that, with their school-wide perspective on serving the needs of all students, school counselors are in the best position to assess the school for systemic barriers to academic success for every student. Further, issues of equity, access, and the lack of supporting conditions for success come to counselors' attention every day in the form of data, files, and reports of whole school and individual student progress or failure. School counselors have access to critical data about student placements, academic success and failure of all students, and course-taking patterns. They know which teachers consistently hold high standards for all students and are skilled enough to help all students attain these standards. They are in touch with parents, and they are in the best position to access human resources in the community. In their role as school leaders, counselors are the "eyes and ears" of the school. An effective school counselor hears more, knows more, and understands more about teachers, parents, students, and the community than anyone else in the school.

Because school counselors have access to all of the available quantitative and qualitative data from the school and relevant community sources, they are in the best position to use this data as advocates for all students. Using this data, school counselors can serve as conductors and transmitters of information to promote school-wide success for all students. When school counselors aggressively perform actions that support entitlement to quality education for all students, they contribute to a school climate where access and support for rigorous preparation is expected. In so doing, students who have not been served well in the past have a chance to acquire the skills necessary to participate fully in the 21st Century economy. To support these actions, school counselors will need to document how these focused efforts helped improve student success (Radd, 1998).

School Counselors as Leaders

School counselors must be incorporated into school reform as leaders who are engaged in system-wide change to ensure student success. In addition to their traditional roles as counselor, coordinator, and consultant, taking on the role of educational leader, advocate, and collaborator will move counselors from the periphery of schools as support staff to a central position in supporting student success. School counselors will need to make changes in how they work, however, if they are to be successful in implementing the new vision of school counseling. (See Table for an outline of the way we see counselors currently functioning and a proposed new focus for school counselors.)

There is considerable support for school counselors moving to a leadership role in schools. The standards of the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP, 2001) include the statement that school counselors need knowledge and skills in "understanding of community, environmental, and institutional opportunities that enhance, as well as create barriers that impede student academic, career, and personal/social success" (p. 92). These current standards for school counselors make a strong case for proactive leadership on the part of school counselors in promoting academic success for all students. The National Standards for School Counseling Programs (Dahir et al., 1998) also invite school counselors "to challenge their belief systems and to provide the advocacy and leadership needed to improve school success for all students" (p. 3).

Serving as educational leaders who advocate for all students will place school counselors in a central role in working with the whole school community to effect necessary change. Critical to counselors' success will be their skill in consensus building and the ability to work collaboratively with a broad range of professionals and concerned citizens in making the most of the personal and cultural differences that will inform any change effort. School counselors can become more effective leaders by collaborating with other professionals in the school building to influence system-wide changes. In this way, school counselors can have an impact on the whole school as well as individual students.

In particular, school counselors can promote student achievement if they provide a well-articulated developmental counseling program with attention to equity, access, and support services. By analyzing data routinely, counselors can actively monitor the progress of underrepresented students in all courses and provide assistance and/or interventions as needed. Working in this way, they can document efforts to improve access to and success in rigorous academic courses for underrepresented students. Once identified, students from underrepresented groups can be targeted for enrollment in rigorous academic courses. In addition, working with teachers and other personnel, counselors should be actively involved in the development, coordination, and implementation of support systems designed to improve the learning success for students experiencing difficulty with rigorous academic programs. Working with administrators, counselors should provide ongoing support for classroom teachers to become sensitive, multicultural .educators who hold their students to high standards while providing high quality instructions. Working in this fashion, school counselors are school leaders who are informed about and active participants in the school reform efforts being undertaken in their school, district, and state.

School Counselors as Collaborators

Schools in the new millennium will need to restructure themselves as learning communities if they are to educate the kind of citizen who will be needed in this evolving future society (Lieberman, 1992; Newmann, 1993). The calls for collaboration that shaped the previous decade have been replaced by a new reform vocabulary including words like networking, learning community, interdisciplinary, partnering, and seamless integration that emphasize the need for community-wide responses to educating youth.

Learning how to become effective collaborators with teachers, administrators, staff, students, parents, and community leaders poses a central challenge to counselors as school leaders. As Campbell and Dahir (1997) noted, "The school counselor is not the counseling program. The school counselor and the school counseling program use a collaborative model as their foundation" (p. 9). In so doing, the counselor works with, rather than for, other professionals in the school to develop and implement responsive educational programs that support the achievement of identified goals for all students. Previous research on building caring communities (Glickman, Hayes, & Hensley, 1992; Hackman, 1990; Hayes, 1993; Sergiovanni, 1994), however, has documented the difficulty in building and sustaining effective collaboration.

Creating an effective working relationship among students, professional and support staff, parents, and community members depends upon mutual understanding and an appreciation of the contributions others can make in educating all children. School counselors must learn to build a sense of community within the school, which can serve as a platform from which to advocate for all students. Fostering genuine school change--rather than superficial tinkering with the curriculum, changing schedules, or making cosmetic adjustments to school policies and practices--demands attention to the unique growth and development that can emerge through small group interaction (Gladding, 1995; Hackman, 1990; Hayes, 1991, 1993).

In the new vision for school counseling presented in this article, counselors are being asked to consider an expanded role for themselves as counseling professionals who can take a leadership role in creating a sense of community in schools for every student. Central characteristics of this role are: (a) a knowledge of how groups work, especially teams; (b) the skills to build effective teams and to encourage genuine collaboration among diverse and often competing members; and (c) a commitment to supporting every member of the school in working towards goals that benefit the entire community.

Because not everyone in the school, even if eager to participate, will possess the skills necessary to work collaboratively, counselors will need to help potential team members, especially students and professional staff who are unaccustomed to working in this way, to develop into contributing team members. The ability to bring everyone together to work interdependently to realize the goals of school-wide reform is the defining characteristic of effective team leadership. School counselors can help others to develop these skills by creating contexts for decision making (Gergen, 1992; Hayes, 1993; Kaner, Lind, Toldi, Fisk, & Berger, 1996; Maeroff, 1988).

In effect, it will be necessary to recognize opportunities for empowerment as a first step in building effective teams. Moreover, developing an effective team requires that differences such as race, gender, experience, preferred learning style, and work role be recognized. As team leaders, counselors will need to encourage members to use recognition of differences, even if it involves conflicting opinions, as a springboard to creative problem solving. By helping members to clarify their goals for school reform and articulating those goals to others, members can more clearly identify tasks that demand working together to achieve these goals. By identifying complementary skills that parents and community members bring to reform efforts, for example, it is easier to structure activities that interconnect their roles with those of school personnel.

Although the role of collaborative leader is an explicit part of the new vision for school counselors, convincing others (e.g., teachers and school administrators) that counselors have the requisite skills and necessary authority to engage others in this way may take some persuasion on the counselors' part (Clark & Stone, 2000). Because they are more often asked to be a member rather than a leader of school groups, demonstrating leadership skills as an "expert member" may be the most effective way to establish their expertise as trusted collaborators who can be called upon to be school leaders. By becoming effective collaborators, school counselors will be ideally positioned to meet the challenge to function as educational leaders who can create more caring communities.

School Counselors as Student Advocates

Research on effective schools is mounting that supports the importance attached to the building of strong supportive relationships between students and caring teachers (Ladson-Billings, 1994; Schaps, Battistich, & Solomon, 1997; Wentzel, 1999). As one of the primary caregivers in the school, counselors are ideally prepared and, as educational leaders, are ideally situated to serve as advocates for all students in meeting high standards. This advocacy role for school counselors is currently supported by professional counseling organizations that identify advocating for students as a necessary and critical component of success in schools. ASCA, for instance, has declared that advocating for the academic success of all students is the key role of counselors and places them at the center of the mission of schooling and school reform (Dahir et al., 1998). In particular, the National Standards for School Counseling Programs emphasize the importance of academic counseling and support "involvement in and commitment to increasing student achievement" (Campbell & Dahir, 1997, p. 2). Further, counselor competencies established by the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC, 1997) indicate that "School counselors should advocate for the educational needs of students and work to ensure that these needs are addressed at every level of the school experience" (p. 5).

What does this role mean for how counselors will work in schools? When working with students, school counselors need to believe and behave as if they expect all students to achieve at a high level. Counselors need to work proactively to remove barriers to learning by teaching students how to help themselves via improved organizational skills, study skills, and test-taking skills. Counselors can also teach students and their families how to successfully manage the bureaucracy of the system and help parents enroll their children in academic courses that will lead to college. Another advocacy role is teaching parents how to make formal requests to school officials, and teaching students and their families how to access support systems for academic success by informing students and parents about tutoring and academic enrichment opportunities for their children.

When working with the school system, school counselors will need to use local, regional, and national data to promote system change. They will need to challenge the existence of low-level and unchallenging courses, and highlight: information that negates myths about who can and cannot achieve success in rigorous courses. Working collaboratively with all school personnel, counselors will need to insure that staff development is offered for school personnel on how to promote high expectations and high standards for all students. When working with the community, school counselors should organize community activities that promote supportive structures that set high standards for all students. School counselors should work with parents and community leaders to organize support for efforts to institute higher standards for all children and work as resource brokers within the community to identify all available resources to help in these efforts.

Conclusion

This new vision for school counseling calls for counselors to work as leaders and advocates to remove systemic barriers that impede the academic success of all students. Through their counseling, collaboration, leadership, advocacy, and the effective use of data, school counselors minimize barriers so that students have increased opportunities to achieve in school. Using these methods promotes equity by providing access to rigorous courses and a quality curriculum. Measurable success resulting from these efforts will be increased numbers of students completing school academically prepared to choose from a wide range of substantial postsecondary options, including college.

We believe that if school counselors work in these ways by relating what they do as school counselors to the mission of schools' academic achievement, school counselors become integral to schools and key players in school reform efforts. This places school counselors in the middle of the efforts to educate all students to high standards and provides methods for documenting success. In these times of financial crises in the schools, these strategies seem critical to the survival of school counselors. In fact, if school counselors do not relate their work and programs to the mission of schools and document success, they are at risk of extinction.

A New Vision for School Counselors

Present Focus

* Mental health providers

* Individual students' concerns/issues

* Clinical model focused on student deficits

* Service provider, 1-1 and small groups

* Primary focus on personal/social

* Ancillary support personnel

* Loosely defined role and responsibility

* Gate keepers  

* Sorters, selectors in course placement process

* Work in isolation or with other counselors

* Guardians of the status quo 

* Involvement primarily with students

* Dependence on use of system's resources for helping students and families

* Post secondary planners with interested students

New Vision

* Academic/student achievement focus

* Whole school and system concerns/issues

* Academic focus, building on student strengths

* Leader, planner, program developer

* Focus on academic counseling, learning and achievement, supporting student success

* Integral members of educational team

* Focused mission and role identification

* Use of data to effect change

* Advocates for inclusion in rigorous preparation for all--especially poor students and students of color

* Teaming and collaboration with all educators in school in resolving issues involving the whole school and community

* Agents for change, especially for educational equity for all students

* Involvement with students, parents, education professionals, community, community agencies

* Brokers of services for parents and students from community resources/agencies as well as school system's resources

* Champions for creating pathways for all students to achieve high aspirations

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Reese M. House, Ed.D., is project director of the Transforming School Counseling Initiative at The Education Trust in Washington, DC. A former school counselor, he is professor emeritus of Counselor Education at Oregon State University, Corvallis. Richard L. Hayes, Ph.D., is professor of Counseling and Human Development Services at The University of Georgia, Athens. He worked as a teacher, school counselor, and counselor educator for the past 30 years developing, coordinating, and evaluating school reforms, especially related to school counseling.