Are School Counselors the Weakest Link?
I heard from some high school counselors yesterday, who were furious with me. I wrote a post for my other college blog at CBSMoneyWatch about a new study that suggests that plenty of school counselors would flunk out if they were graded like their students.
In the Public Agenda survey, which was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the majority of young Americans, ages 22 to 30, gave their school counselor poor or fair grades. For instance, 67% of those surveyed said their counselors did a fair or poor job of helping them decide what school was right for them.
You might assume that I was just the messenger of this bleak assessment of high school counseling, but I felt compelled to add my own two cents. This is a subject I feel very strongly about.
High school counselors do have huge loads, but I think the problem goes far beyond that. What I find truly bizarre is that high school counselors aren’t even trained to provide college advice!!
You can read more about my take on this national scandal, as well as the comments that I received from school counselors, here.
Read more:
Why High School Counselors Don’t Know Much About College
10 Things About College That High School Counselors Don’t Know
A lot of college counselors in high school are pretty incompetent… NYT recently wrote an article about it too: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/education/03guidance.html?ref=education
interesting approach.