Below the accountability radar screen:What does state policy say about school counseling?

Abstract

I examine the state policy context of implementing an initiative that transforms the training and role of today's school counselors. This is essentially a story of political process. Like the implementation of many initiatives, the Transforming School Counselor Initiative (TSCI) is a process of gaining support and then institutionalizing a newly-formed vision for the role and function of a profession that has been a part of the school organization for the better part of a century. I examine the educational reform contexts of California, Florida, Georgia, Indiana and Ohio as it relates to implementing the Initiative. As such, the framework for analysis on state policy context draws from macropolitical processes as a way of examining practices and actions of key state stakeholders, such as the state departments of education, the counseling profession's state-level association and state legislation and statutory language. The final 2 of 30 analysis ranks the 5 states with regard to their institutional capacity to fully implement and stabilize reform initiatives related to school counseling.

A Landscape Analysis of State-Level School Counseling Policy: Perspectives from State Officials

“…However, state counseling policy is underexplored in the research literature today. While studies have examined the impact of particular state counseling policies-such as those related to caseload size (Hurwitz & Howell, 2014), time counselors spend providing direct services (Lancaster et al, 2021), and adoption of the ASCA National Model (Carey et al, 2012)-on student and counselor outcomes, just a handful have explored the implementation of these policies by state actors (e.g., Eilers, 2004;Martin & Carey, 2012;Nelson et al, 2007). Notably, just one study, Martin and Carey's (2012) research on a state-wide counseling program evaluation system, focused on counseling policy implementation by SEAs specifically.…”