Though overburdened with heavy caseloads and administrative tasks, guidance counselors are often overlooked and underutilized when it comes to getting students ready for college.
Those are some of the major points made in a new report that seeks to reposition high school guidance counselors as more effective facilitators in the nation’s pursuit of greater postsecondary attainment.
The report — the “2011 National Survey of School Counselors: Counseling at a Crossroads” — was released Tuesday in the historic Senate Caucus Room at the U.S. Capitol.
John Bridgeland, CEO and president of Civic Enterprises and a co-author of the report, said it was fitting for the report to be released in the same room where, in 1960, then-U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy announced his candidacy for the presidency of the United States. The reason, he said, is because that era represents the last time the United States — through the National Defense Education Act of 1958 — made guidance counseling a priority.
“The problem has been there’s a lack of clarity of what their mission is,” Bridgeland said in an interview with Diverse. “In schools, they’re all over the map.”
Beyond lack of clarity of purpose, the report — based on a survey of 5,308 middle and high school counselors — exposes various “gaps” that many of the counselors think exist between their mission and the day-to-day realities at their schools when it comes to their ability to play a meaningful role in helping students get ready for college and careers.
