Transforming the school counseling profession

1. Transforming the school counseling profession

2. PERCEPTIONS OF SCHOOL COUNSELING • Share and Pair • Discuss your perceptions of your own school counselor when you were in school. • What was she/he like? What were your perceptions of his/her role in the school? • What are your perceptions of the roles of school counselors today?

3. Why Transform the Profession? • School counselors • Were not meeting the needs of all students • Were unable to demonstrate how they made a difference • Were unable to show how what they did were tied to academic achievement There were • Too many negative views of school counselors There was • Role confusion among school counselors Therefore… • Were subject to budget cuts

4. Transformed School Counselors • Show that… • They make a difference • They facilitate and implement strategies and interventions that meet the needs of all students • What they are doing is making a difference in academic achievement • They are working to close the academic achievement gap • They are working to increase equity, access, and social justice for marginalized students

5. Our School • Hampton School is located in an urban school district. Over 60% of the students are on free and reduced lunch. About 20% of the students are in academically challenging classes. These students are the pride of the school. The other 80% are in what are considered as standard or remedial classes. Data indicates that 60% of the students who attend this school eventually go on to two or four year colleges. The other 40% either drop out of high school or do not go onto postsecondary education (PSE)

6. Inequities in U.S. Schools

7. National Office for School Counselor Advocacy Document source: Trends in Higher Education Series; Education Pays 2007: The Benefits of Higher Education for Individuals and Society. Baum, Sandy & Ma, Jennifer. College Board publication.

8. Document source: Trends in Higher Education Series; Education Pays 2007: The Benefits of Higher Education for Individuals and Society. Baum, Sandy & Ma, Jennifer. College Board publication. National Office for School Counselor Advocacy

9. Document source: Trends in Higher Education Series; Education Pays 2007: The Benefits of Higher Education for Individuals and Society. Baum, Sandy & Ma, Jennifer. College Board publication.

10. Document source: Trends in Higher Education Series; Education Pays 2007: The Benefits of Higher Education for Individuals and Society. Baum, Sandy & Ma, Jennifer. College Board publication.

11. NAEP Reading, 9 Year-OldsRecord Performance for All Groups

12. NAEP Reading, 9 Year-OldsAfrican American-White Gap Narrows to Smallest Size in History Source: National Center for Education Statistics, NAEP 2004 Trends in Academic Progress

13. NAEP Reading, 9 Year-OldsLatino-White Gap Narrows to Smallest Size in History Source: National Center for Education Statistics, NAEP 2004 Trends in Academic Progress

14. NAEP Math, 9 Year-OldsRecord Performance for All Groups Source: National Center for Education Statistics, NAEP 2004 Trends in Academic Progress

15. NAEP Math, 9 Year-Olds African American-White Gap Narrows to Smallest Size in History Source: National Center for Education Statistics, NAEP 2004 Trends in Academic Progress

16. 1996 NAEP Grade 4 Mathby Race/Ethnicity, Nation Source: National Center for Education Statistics, NAEP Data Explorer, http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/nde/

17. 2007 NAEP Grade 4 Mathby Race/Ethnicity, Nation Source: National Center for Education Statistics, NAEP Data Explorer, http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/nde/

18. NAEP Grade 4 MathLow-Income Students, Nation1996 compared to 2007

19. Achievement Flat or Declining in Reading, 17 year olds, NAEP

20. Value Added Declining in High School Math... Note: Scale score gains reflect the difference between the scale scores of 17-year-olds and the scale scores of 13-year-olds four years prior.

21. African American, Latino & Native American high school graduates are less likely to be in a full college prep track Full College Prep track is defined as at least: 4 years of English, 3 years of math, 2 years of natural science, 2 years of social science and 2 years of foreign language Source: Jay P. Greene, Public High School Graduation and College Readiness Rates in the United States, Manhattan Institute, September 2003. Table 8. 2001 high school graduates with college-prep curriculum.

22. US: Poor and Minority Students Get More Inexperienced* Teachers High poverty Low poverty High minority Low minority *Teachers with 3 or fewer years of experience. Note: High poverty refers to the top quartile of schools with students eligible for free/reduced price lunch. Low poverty- bottom quartile of schools with students eligible for free/reduced price lunch. High minority-top quartile; those schools with the highest concentrations of minority students. Low minority-bottom quartile of schools with the lowest concentrations of minority students

23. Fewer Latino students are enrolledin Algebra 2 Source: CCSSO, State Indicators of Science and Mathematics Education, 2001

24. Of Every 100 White Kindergartners: (25-to 29-Year-Olds) Source: US Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. March Current Population Surveys, 1971-2003, in The Condition of Education 2005. http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/2005/section3/indicator23.asp#info

25. Of Every 100 African American Kindergartners: (25-to 29-Year-Olds)

26. Of Every 100 Latino Kindergartners: (25-to 29-Year-Olds)

27. Of Every 100 American Indian/Alaskan Native Kindergartners: (25 Years Old and Older) Source: U.S. Census Bureau, We the People: American Indians and Alaska Natives in the United States. Data source: Census 2000, www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/race/censr-28.pdf

28. What do we mean? • Equity • Access • Social Justice

29. What is Equity? • Equity requires that we treat students differently on the basis of students’ unique needs AND aspects of students’ backgrounds, including ethnicity, gender, income background, etc. in order to create equality • Efforts/actions to remove differences in educational, social, health outcomes between groups faced with differential exposure to social and economic policies and practices that create barriers to opportunity

30. Equity ≠ Equality • Equality = • Providing equal resources, interventions, and access for all stakeholders • Equity = • Providing more resources, interventions, and access for those school stakeholders who need more

31. What is Access? • A way of entering or leaving • Opportunity and ability to enter, approach, or pass to

32. What is Social Justice? • Social justice refers to the idea of a just society where there is equality and equity among and between groups of people • Social justice targets marginalized groups of people in society, schools, etc. (whereas equality or equal rights are applicable to everyone).

33. What Is Social Justice Counseling? Social justice counseling represents a multifaceted approach to counseling in which practitioners strive to simultaneously promote human development and the common good through addressing challenges related to both individual and distributive justice.

34. Social Justice recognizes that there are situations in which the application of the same rules to unequal groups can generate unequal results!

35. Traditional SC Approach Dependence on counseling theories and approaches with little to no regard for cultural background Emphasis on individual student factors (e.g., unmotivated, depressed) Emphasis on equality Reliance on labels Little to no use of data Focus on maintaining status quo Focus on enrolling students in “comfortable” courses Social Justice Approach Major focus is on highlighting the strengths of students (empowerment-based counseling) Emphasis on socio-cultural and environmental factors (e.g., poverty, discrimination, neighborhoods) that influence student behavior Major goal is to challenge oppression Emphasis on equality and equity Avoidance of labeling Dependence on data Focus on changing existing policies and strategies Focus on enrolling students in more rigorous courses Traditional vs. Social Justice Approach to School Counseling Holcomb-McCoy (2007). School counseling to close the achievement gap.

36. National Office for School Counselor Advocacy

37. ASCA Code of Ethics Preamble June 2004 National Office for School Counselor Advocacy • Each person has the right to receive the information and support needed to move toward self-direction and self-development and affirmation within one’s group identities with special care given to students who have historically not received adequate educational services; • students of color • students from low-socio-economic backgrounds • students with disabilities • students with non-dominant language backgrounds.

38. Ethics – Section E.2, Diversity • The professional school counselor: • Affirms the diversity of students, staff, and families B. Expands and develops awareness of his/her own attitudes and beliefs affecting cultural values and biases and strives to attain cultural competence. C. possesses knowledge and understanding about how oppression, racism, discrimination and stereotyping affects him/her personally and professionally. D. Acquires educational, consultation, and training experiences to improve awareness, knowledge, skills, and effectiveness in working with diverse populations: • ethnic/racial status, • age, • economic status • special needs • ESL or ELL • immigration status • sexual orientation, gender, gender identity/expression • family type • religious/spiritual identity and appearance. (ASCA, 2004a, p.4)

39. Critical Shifts Social Justice-Based Education Equality Equity Identifying at-risk students Acknowledging a broken system Color-Blindness Self-Examination Learning about “other cultures” Dismantling systems of power and privilege Celebrating diversity Advocating and fighting for equity Focus on intent Focus on impact

40. Our School • Hampton School is located in an urban school district. Over 60% of the students are on free and reduced lunch. About 20% of the students are in academically challenging classes. These students are the pride of the school. The other 80% are in what are considered as standard or remedial classes. Data indicates that 60% of the students who attend this school eventually go on to two or four year colleges. The other 40% either drop out of high school or do not go onto postsecondary education (PSE). • As a social justice-focused school counselor, what are some of the things you would do in this school to meet the needs of students?