The Ten Goals for This School Year

By: Patrick O'Connor Ph.D

The start of a new school year is a lot like the start of a new calendar year.  Everyone begins with a sense of fresh opportunity, convinced this is the year that will be different from the time we vowed to give up chocolate, use the treadmill every day, or walk the dog even when it’s cold.

In the spirit of eternal optimism, here’s my list for this year. I’d love to hear yours:

This school year, I vow:

1.     To write my college letters of recommendation right after I meet with each student.  The fresher the meeting, the better the letter—even if the ones I write at 2 AM the night before they’re due are just fine, too.

2.     Not to scream when someone talks about the 3 Rs of education.  Only one of them is an R, so it’s easy to see why people don’t take educators seriously when we use this term—but I’m pulling a Queen Elsa here.  We’ll see what happens.

3.     To figure out if there’s more I can do to help students pay for college.  The need is greater, and the resources seem smaller, but once my letter writing is done, this will be my focus, since getting into college doesn’t matter if you can’t afford it.

4.     To ease off on social media.  It’s too easy to look at the phone; it’s time to look more at the world first-hand.

5.     To master Excel and Google Docs.  How hard can it be?

6.     To make sure no student’s college essay uses the word Epic.  I know—right?

7.     To eat lunch out of tmy office, with other people, at least once a week.  Yes, it’s become that bad.

8.     To help at least one state pass school counselor training reform in college counseling.  We need to know more, and we know we need to know more.  I hope my state is first past the finish line, but if another state wants help doing this, call me.

9.     To figure out when I can do leisure reading without falling asleep.  Doris Kearns Goodwin is a great writer; why have I read the same sentence about Teddy Roosevelt every night for the last four months?

10.  To let people call me whatever they want.  School counselor, guidance counselor, college counselor.  I know I work hard for kids; that’s all that matters.

What Was Done for School Counselors on Their Summer Vacation

By: Patrick O'Connor Ph.D

Schools are opening after a summer of activity rich with support and opportunity for school counselors.  There are almost too many highlights to talk about, but these four come to mind:

First Lady Michelle Obama electrified the profession when she appeared as a keynote speaker at the annual meeting of the American School Counselor Association in June.  Mrs. Obama recognized school counselors for their hard work, and acknowledged that their work was made even more challenging due to large caseloads and insufficient training in career and college counseling.  Mrs. Obama promised to do more for school counselors…

…and she made good on her promise when the White House held a July summit on school counselors and college advising at Harvard.  120 college advising advocates met to discuss current progress and challenges in this vital field; participants were also asked to make a promise to advance college advising in some way over the next six months.

The summit came about a month after US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan sent a “Dear Colleague” letter to the 50 state chief education officers.  In that letter, Secretary Duncan asked school leaders to make sure counselors received adequate training in college and career counseling. He also asked them to make sure school counselors received the training and opportunities necessary to be seen as the leaders of creating a college readiness atmosphere in their buildings—with both goals accomplished by the end of this summer.

Common Application was supposed to open August 1st for high school seniors to begin the college application process.  Fraught with logistical challenges last year, Common App put the concerns of many counselors to rest, as the application tool opened twelve hours early, on July 31st.  Since then, students and counselors have been completing online materials without a hitch, much to the delight of all members of the Class of 2015 and those supporting their work in the college application process. (Disclosure: I am a member of the board of directors for Common Application.)

School counselors find themselves in the unusual position of starting the school year with positive momentum built by others, so it’s natural to ask—what should we do next to build on this summer of school counselor support?  Three things come to mind:

Continue to implement the excellent programs and support school counselors are known for.  The White House is extending unprecedented support to school counselors because the work we do for students makes a difference.  Plans for future services are always important, but only if they are built on the continued success of our programs—as a result, we need to keep up the good work.

Find out what steps your state has taken to implement the requests of Secretary Duncan’s “Dear Colleague” letter.  Early indications suggest state school leaders have been slow to consider or develop initiatives that will give school counselors the better training they deserve in college advising and in building leadership in college readiness.  Now is not the time to let this opportunity die due to lack of counselor input; contact your state education office, and ask about their plans.

Get involved.  The White House is holding another college advising summit in December, where invitations are extended based on commitments to strengthen the relationships between K-12 and higher education.  There’s really no such thing as free time to a school counselor, but if your state is behind in its Dear Colleague commitment, now is the time to step up to the plate.  Not only will it help counselors and students; it may land you in the Roosevelt Room with the First Lady.

A Reminder That Numbers Don’t Always Tell the Story

By: Patrick O'Connor Ph.D

Michigan residents received interesting news about their schools this week, as the state released its annual test results.  According to the report, and to a related editorial in the Lansing State Journal, Michigan’s eleventh graders managed to do three very interesting things, all at the same time:

·         As a group, their scores on the Michigan Merit Exam went up;

·         At the same time, the number of students the test deemed to be “college-ready” went down;

·         At 200 high schools, not a single junior was college-ready, according to the test.

If the purpose of data is to lead to more questions, this set of test scores gets an A, since the results seem to be confusing at best, and discouraging at worst.

How can scores go up if fewer students are college ready?  The test used to determine college readiness is the ACT, which measures student performance in English, math, science reasoning, and math.  Students are college-ready only if they score at a certain level at each of the four areas.  This means more students scored higher on parts of the exam than last year, but fewer of them scored at the college level ready in all four areas.

So it’s kind of like having five players on your basketball team that each score 20 points, instead of having one player score 30, and the other four score 10.  Exactly.  Michigan’s students generated more points, but fewer individuals were, so to speak, high scorers.

Is that good?  As a group, Michigan scored higher on the exam to move up the average.  That suggests students as a whole are learning more, so that’s good news.

But fewer students are college ready, so that’s bad, right?  It would be much better if the average scores had gone up *and* if more students were college ready, for sure.  But the increase in scores likely means more students are closer to being college ready, as it’s measured by the test. 

Will this lead to more students taking remedial classes in college, or flunking out?  That’s hard to say.  If a student majoring in History is college ready (according to the ACT) in reading and English, but not math and science, they might get through the few college-level  math and science classes they need with more study time and a tutor. Engineering students with high math and science scores who didn’t make the ACT college-ready standard in English may have a harder time, since you have to read no matter what you study, but they might be OK as well, if their scores were only a point or two away.

Because the test isn’t perfect, and some students who scored close to college-ready may be fine.  Right.

So the college-bound students at those 200 high schools will probably be OK?  Many of those students will go on to college and be fine, as long as they study hard in their senior year and make good college choices.  Still, educators in those schools will be looking to see what they can do to get all of their students across the finish line. Zero is a powerful number, and that could be good news in the end.

Anything else in the data we should know about?  The breakdown of average scores by race continues to be discouraging—only 5% of African-American students taking the test were viewed as college-ready in math. This suggests we have a long way to go in working with students of color, especially in low-income areas; but if anyone needed test scores to realize that, you have to wonder if they’ve been paying attention.

White House to States: Help School Counselors Now

By: Patrick O'Connor Ph.D

School counselors got their summer vacation off to a great start, as many are attending the annualconference of the American School Counselor Association in Orlando, which featured First Lady Michelle Obama as one of the keynote speakers. After thanking the counselors for all they do, Mrs. Obama touched on many of the key challenges counselors live with every day:

• Mrs. Obama called the national average of one counselor for every 471 students "outrageous."
• "(O)ne in five American high schools doesn't have any school counselors at all--none. And that's appalling."
• " (T)hose of you at the high school level are expected to help students choose between thousands of colleges and certificate programs and countless financial aid packages, but hardly any of your master's degree programs included training on college and career readiness."

The applause received by each of these remarks indicated a sense of gratitude and relief--at last, a policy maker truly understood the needs of school counselors.

Mrs. Obama then outlined three key steps the administration is taking to support school counselors:

• Starting in 2015, the School Counselor of the Year will be recognized at a White House ceremony, echoing the long-held White House practice of honoring the Teacher of the Year.
• A meeting will be held in late July at Harvard to discuss the professional development needs of school counselors and the future of the profession.
• Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has sent a letter to all state education leaders, calling for more support of school counselors.

A close look at the letter sent to state school leaders clearly indicates this commitment to counselors is a serious one. In his communique, Secretary Duncan calls on school officials to:

• Give counselors the resources they need to do their work, including the removal of non-counseling duties that take away from time with students.
• Empower and train counselors to serve as leaders of the college access movement in their schools and beyond, giving them the skills and opportunities to provide professional development to teachers and others who help shape student attitudes about college access and college readiness.
• Develop these programs and policies for improved college access this summer.

That last point can't be overstated. The profession that has spent decades discussing student assessment and teacher tenure must radically improve the way school counselors are viewed and able to do their work in eight weeks.

Mrs. Obama's remarks advance a year-long effort by the White House to improve college access for all students. The call to elevate the role and visibility of school counselors in the college selection process is bolstered by an avalanche of datashowing the importance of counselors in helping students make good decisions for life after high school--and how badly students want and need that assistance. School counselors have long been the de facto leaders of the affective tone and college advising curriculum of their buildings. Mrs. Obama's remarks, and Secretary Duncan's letter, are the most tangible acknowledgements to date of those important roles.

Many details remain to be worked out--what will change in eight weeks, where will the money come from for professional development in college advising, how will counselor training programs respond to the paucity of college advising preparation--but it is clear that school counseling and postsecondary planning are receiving a welcome by this White House that has never been seen. School may be out, but state education leaders suddenly have some serious homework to do this summer vacation--and it's due in eight weeks.

Let's hope they get an A.

Worried About Student Debt? Ask a Counselor

By: Patrick O'Connor Ph.D

It happens every year.  No sooner does school let out, and counselors complete their extra couple of days/weeks/months of work, and the headlines fill with a story that directly impacts our work.

This year’s topic is student debt.  Many articles are posted each May about the high price of college, but this year brought more of them than ever.  Many of them went to great lengths to include examples of students who took out $80-100,000 in loans to complete Bachelors’ degrees that held small value in the job market.  This has led to a number of articles countering that, all things equal, statistics show student debt isn’t all that much worse than it was ten or twenty years ago.  Now, in late June, the articles are challenging the data used in these articles, with the “sky is falling” team and the “things have always been this way” team trying to outmaneuver each other with discussions of mean, average, and outliers.

It’s important to read these articles, but it’s even more important to do so with a wary eye.  Yes, there are students who take out $80,000 loans to get degrees in things like Medieval Art History, but there aren’t that many, or the average debt load of graduates would be $80,000, when it’s currently $33,000.  That’s still a lot of money, unless of course your degree is in Engineering, when you will likely get a job before college is over, and that job will pay at least $55,000 a year.  That means $30,000 in debt isn’t a risky loan; it’s a wise investment. 

On the other hand, it really probably is a very bad idea to take $33,000 in loans to attend a local “college” that promises you a great-paying job in six months, when you have never heard of that college before they called you at home.  If their results were really that good, there’s a great chance someone—your parents, a friend, your counselor—would have told you about this at some point in your high school career. 

Beyond offering bad advice for students and parents, these articles hold a higher likelihood for compelling mischief when they recommend policy changes based on their limited use of statistics.  The “do nothing” crowd is totally oblivious to the number of debt-endowed students who are living with their parents—but that is where we find the largest increase in indebted students. 

At the same time, a remarkable number of high borrowers choose to attend higher-priced private colleges, rather than the lower-priced universities that, as a rule, are considered less prestigious.   Many people would rather drive an Accura than a Camry, but should we really alter college loan policies just because those who can well afford the Camry take loans to support a poorly-informed choice to go for the flashier ride?

The challenge in letting economists, politicians, and the media determine education policy is that none of them are educators, making it too easy to wander from reality when they try and find a “cause” and a “solution.” This year’s discussion of college costs is lengthier than prior years, but the quality of the debate has now devolved into arguing about one another’s figures.  Students and parents should let the argument continue without them; if you need help in deciding what’s best for you, talk to a counselor before you sign off of any loan, or decide to spend your life savings on a college just because it has a higher ranking.  Your decision shouldn’t be about prestige, or bimodal distributions—it should be about you.

More Time To Talk About College? Create a Class!

By: Patrick O'Connor Ph.D

Late June is a time when school counselors think big.  Guided by a desire to increase service to their students, counselors take a minute from the cleaning of files and their year-end reports to consider next year—what could be better, what could be different, what could go easier?

When it comes to college counseling, it isn’t surprising that counselors consider the value of a college counseling class for their students.  Counselors want to talk with more students about college, and students want to focus on college selection with their ever-busy schedules.  A college counseling class meets both these needs, and creates a frequency of counselor-student interaction that’s hard to create with individual appointments or after-school seminars.

If the idea of regularly talking college appeals to you, consider each of these points as you create a proposal to take to your principal:

When will it be offered?  Just like the Biology teacher would love a two-hour block to complete in-depth labs, counselors would love to talk to students daily about college—but if that time can’t be built into the master schedule, it just isn’t going to happen.

This is where a counselor’s expertise in scheduling comes into play.  Is there a required senior course that meets every other day, allowing a college counseling class to fill the empty slots?  Is there an open period in your school’s block schedule where students can choose to study, where a college counseling class would meet an important need? Looking at the master schedule with new eyes could reveal a slot that’s begging to be filled.

If no holes exist, consider spreading the contents through existing classes.  Is there a Life Skills course where a College Counseling unit could be taught?  How about a Health or Careers course?  Many counselors are partnering with English classes to talk about the college essay; is there room there to expand the discussion to other parts of the college selection process?

It may seem backward to consider the shape of a course before creating its contents, but veteran counselors know the schedule drives all—so consider your time limitations first.

What will be covered?  If the goal is to provide a college counseling class where seniors use the time to apply to college, the curriculum is easy, with units on college selection, campus visits, parts of the college application, interviews, and financial aid.  If the course is aimed at juniors, many of these same topics can be addressed, plus test preparation.  A course for younger high school students should be less about application logistics and more about college readiness and awareness, focusing on study skills, extracurricular pursuits, college exploration, and more.  You know the curriculum by heart; build the class to meet the time specifications you have, then supplement the curriculum with field trips, and speakers.

How will it be graded?  This is a class that teaches the value of exploration, and students are less likely to investigate a variety of options if it means getting a bad grade for an option that doesn’t pan out.  It’s wise to make this a Pass/Fail course, based on completion of essential exploration activities and personal reflection, where the student shows evidence that they’ve thought about their plans for life after college; explored a reasonable number of options, and followed through on the options that make the most sense to them—even if that means not going to college.

It’s hard to find the time to meet the college needs of every single senior.  A scheduled college counseling class creates that time for you and your students—consider it closely. 

One last reminder- the online summer college counseling class for school counselors starts Monday, June 23^rd.   For more information on the class counselors call “the best counseling class I’ve ever taken”, 
 visit  http://www.collegeisyours.com/College_Counseling_Class.html

The Surprise End-of-the-Year Report

By:  Patrick O'Connor Ph.D

You’re just about to begin your summer, when your principal tells you about a new board-mandated counseling report that’s due in two weeks.  In a perfect world, you knew about this last fall, and set up the benchmarks and collection methods you knew you were going to need right now to put together a data-rich report with ease.  But you didn’t, so you couldn’t—what now?

Follow these simple steps, and you’ll have enough of a report to take to any reasonable principal with your head held high, and with your students at the center of your work.

Write down what went well.  A college professor calls this the Drive Home Analysis.  On his way home from every class, he thinks about what went well in the class he just taught, and thinks about why it worked.  This increases the chance future classes will go just as well when this same topic is taught.

Counselors can do the same thing right now.  Which counseling groups went well?  Which speakers were well received?  Why did you talk to fewer students about cheating this year, than last year?   Write it all down, and give yourself some credit for everything that worked.

Write down what didn’t go well.  Being the nice people they are, it’s usually easier for counselors to remember the programs, sessions, and presentations that fell short—we want to serve all students well, and we know when that doesn’t happen.  The best way to reach the goal of better service is to write down where things fell apart, and consider why.  The goal here isn’t to decide how to improve things; record what happened, and why, and leave it at that.

Review what data you have.  Now that you’ve had your intuitive say about your program, it’s time to look at the data.  You can’t make up numbers you didn’t know you needed, but every school keeps track of some things.  For starters, take a look at:

·         The number of discipline referrals you received

·         The number of personal  counseling sessions you conducted

·         Absence, tardiness, and truancy data

·         College application data

·         College financial aid and scholarship application data

·         College admissions results

·         College scholarship results

·         College persistence rates (if you have them through the National Clearinghouse)

It’s very likely this data can be used to compare last year to this year.  Even if this is an imperfect statistical analysis, it’s a place to begin a report, and a summer conversation about everything a counseling office really does. 

Conclude with recommendations.  Your first data-driven report isn’t going to be comprehensive, and that’s a good thing—if data was all your school needed, they’d hire an accountant, not a counselor.  Start your presentation with the data you have, then offer the insights you wrote down when you mentally reviewed your program.  This shows your principal you’re alert to the students and the school, even if you don’t have the numbers to back it up this year.

You end your report with recommendations—what to do to improve the data-based conclusions you have, and how to collect data on the conclusions you know exist, but can’t quantify this year.  This shows support for your principal, and receptivity to improvement that can lay the groundwork for more support from them.  It isn’t a perfect report, but you didn’t have much time to prepare; the best thing to do is to provide what you have, discuss what you’ll do next year, and lay the groundwork for mutually-beneficial improvement.