Ten Things Principals can do to Improve the College-Going Culture in Their Building

By: Patrick O'Connor Ph.D


With National School Counselor Week next week, your principal may be wondering how to honor your work.  Slip this to their administrative assistant, and see what happens—and be sure to remind them if you prefer dark or milk chocolate.

1.      Ask this your school counselors how you can be of help.  School counselors are the coordinators of the college-going curriculum in your building, so keeping in touch with them keeps you in touch with the successes and needs of your college-going climate.  Meet with them regularly

2.      Support your school counselors.  Improvement in a college-going culture begins with support of those leading the creation of that culture.  There are five key ways administrators can show that support—understand all five, and be sure to ask your counselors what else you can do.  http://hscw-counselorscorner.blogspot.com/2013/10/administrative-support-of-counseling.htm

3.      Know the two parts of the college-going curriculum in your building.  College-going culture is far more than “getting in” to college.  The two parts—college awareness and college readiness-- are integral parts of every other curriculum in the building, and run the K-12 span.

4.      A college-going curriculum starts well before junior year.  You didn’t misread the last sentence in point 2.  Attitudes about college are shaped early, in both students and parents, so it’s crucial to have a college-going curriculum at every level of learning.

5.      Colleges want more than good grades and test scores.  These important data points reveal only part of the demonstrated qualities colleges want to see in applicants.  Extracurricular activities, service opportunities, essays, and recommendations address other qualities vital to a successful college application, including intelligence, creativity, critical thinking, persistence, reaction to setbacks, leadership, self-knowledge, innovation, synthesis, effective communication, empathy, curiosity, and analysis.

6.      A college-going curriculum doesn’t have to be built from the ground up.  A number of strong (and free) resources exist that are ready for your counselors to implement and tailor to the needs of your students and your community—for starters, see:

• http://www.nacacnet.org/research/PublicationsResources/Marketplace/student/Pages/GuidingEducation.aspx
• https://nosca.collegeboard.org/eight-components
• (and for tips on effective counselor-principal relationships-- https://nosca.collegeboard.org/research-policies/principal-counselor?affiliateId=noscahero&bannerId=counselor ) 

7.      College awareness is for every student.  Not every student needs to go to college to fulfill their personal or career goals, but every student needs to know what college offers before they can make that decision.  Make sure all students are involved in college awareness activities.

8.      All postsecondary plans have equal value.  Students who thoughtfully choose a path other than college are doing just as much for their families and communities as students who thoughtfully choose college.  Work with your school team to make sure the plans of all seniors are equally respected and celebrated.

9.      It takes a community to make students college-aware and college-ready.  A Counseling Advisory Committee consists of community leaders who come together for one goal—to support all counseling efforts in your building, including college-going.  This team leads to more scholarships, internships, and support with the logistics of applying to college.  This is an ASCA requirement—if you need help building one, take a look at http://hscw-counselorscorner.blogspot.com/2013/12/cry-for-help-or-pity-party.html

10.  Your counselors need more and frequent training in the college selection process.  Only two counselor education programs in the country require a college counseling course, and less than 30 offer one, so most counselors learn about college counseling on the job—and with high caseloads, that can be difficult.  More training is usually needed throughout a counselor’s career—for one possible training option, see the class I teach at http://www.collegeisyours.com/College_Counseling_Class.html

New Studies: Liberal Arts Majors Make Money, MOOCs Don’t Get Completed, and Snow Days Rock

By:  Patrick O'Connor Ph.D

You’re not alone if you think winter is a good time to curl up with a good read. Professional journals are awash with reports, studies, and findings that impact a great deal of our work—here’s a small sampling of what’s out there:

• A report from MIT and Harvard shows what most counselors could have predicted--completion rates for online courses is remarkably small. Over 800,000 people signed up for the Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) the two institutions offered last year, but less than five percent completed the course—and over a third never opened the course material.  If those numbers sound worse than students who enroll in traditional classes, there’s a reason for that—they are…

…but the authors of the report say that’s not their fault, and measuring the success of a MOOC by the percentage of completers misses the point of MOOCs.  "Some students who register for MOOCs have no intention of completing, and some instructors do not emphasize completion as a priority. Success and failure take many forms."

It’s certainly encouraging to hear some students are signing up for MOOCs merely for the sake of learning—but isn’t that also the case for face-to-face colleges?  The authors of the study may have a point, but they also may be using the claim to hide a larger issue—that students are finding the courses harder than they thought they would be.  That isn’t news to veteran online teachers—and since policymakers are expecting traditional schools to ramp up completion rates, you can bet this report won’t be met with open arms in Washington.  http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/completion-rates-arent-the-best-way-to-judge-moocs-researchers-say/49721

•  Another report suggests parents don’t have to worry that their child with a liberal arts degree will spend their entire life living at home.  The American Association of Colleges and Universities joined with the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems to produce a report suggesting many liberal arts majors in the middle of their careers make more money that those who majored in a professional area, and employment rates are about the same. There is an initial employment and earnings gap at the start, but liberal arts majors catch up…

…and seem to offer employers more as a whole.  The report indicates employers still place a high value on the critical thinking skills that are the essence of a liberal arts education, qualities more professional degrees aren’t teaching.  The report doesn’t guarantee success for anyone, but provides assurance that successful students who follow their passions are likely to do well in the world, regardless of where that passion lies.  http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/01/22/see-how-liberal-arts-grads-really-fare-report-examines-long-term-data#ixzz2r8BqG02J

 

• Finally, Harvard offers great news about snow days.  Despite the insistence of Grinchy policy makers, snow days have no impact on student achievement.  In many cases, this may be due to policymakers adding a couple of extra days of school in regions where winter weather is hazardous, but calling a day off because of bad weather doesn’t hurt students…

…instead, not calling snow days seems to have a negative impact on learning.  If the weather is bad and school’s open, fewer students come to school; that means teachers have to take more time to bring the absent students up to speed on an entire lesson, and that slows the learning process.  While the report doesn’t address this point, this could be due to the strategies teachers have for condensing two lessons into one when there’s a snow day—strategies that don’t work when half the class has had the whole lesson.

Either way, be sure to pass this one along to your principal! http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2014/01/snow-days-dont-subtract-from-learning/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=hu-twitter-general 

Celebrating Our Work, Even in January

By: Patrick O'Connor Ph.D

January can feel very hard on school counselors. We help students get over the post-holiday slump and back into the groove of going to school, we prepare for testing, we embrace a new round of schedule changes, we talk students through the college admissions decisions they received over break, and—let’s be honest—we count the time down to Presidents Day. Little did Lincoln and Washington realize how much freedom they were giving to school counselors, simply by being born the same time of year!

Of course, we don’t always have to wait for days off to feel a sense of satisfaction—in fact, two recent reports suggest we have a great deal to feel good about all the time.  A.S. Belasco recently conducted a data review of high school graduates who went on to postsecondary institutions, and the findings are impressive. Here’s a note from the Results section:

…(S)tudents who visited their counselor for college-related information were more likely to enroll in postsecondary education and at four-year institutions in particular. Results also demonstrated that the influence of school-based college counseling varied based on socioeconomic status, and that low-SES students were likely to yield the most benefit from their relationship with a school counselor.

The findings went on to point out that students from low socio-economic schools (SES) had a greater likelihood of going to a four-year college if they visited their high school counselor in both 10^th and 12^th grade, and not just 12^th grade.

These results are very encouraging for a couple of reasons.  First, the results confirm that counselors do make a difference when helping students develop plans for study after high school.  Counselors have known this for a long time, but this data analysis goes a long way to provide empirical support of this position.

Second, these results offer some evidence to refute the current claim that high school counselors are “undermatching” low-SES students. The study doesn’t analyze counselor effectiveness by type of four-year institution, but the results do suggest students who meet early and regularly with their counselor get the support and “push” they need to look at four-year colleges.  This lays the foundation for more research from the same data to see what role counselor influence plays in students applying to highly selective colleges.

Many of the points raised in this study support the findings of a little-used College Board study from last year.  High schools in Oklahoma were randomly selected to receive an additional school counselor.  At the end of the study, college- going rates were compared between the high schools that received an extra counselor, and a control group of high schools that received no extra counselors. 

The summary of the College Board findings suggested that, on average, the presence of an additional school counselor led to a 10% increase in the number of students attending college.  In addition, the findings indicated that the degree of the increase was impacted by the amount of training the new counselor had received in college advising.

While these results are tentative, the two studies support some long-held counselor beliefs:

•  Counselors make a difference when it comes to students’ plans for life after high school.
• This is especially true in low-income high schools, where students start to work early with their counselor.
• College attainment increases when student/counselor ratios go down.
• College attainment increases when school counselors receive more training in college counseling.

Now that’s worth celebrating!

Belasco’s study can be found at http://www.umass.edu/schoolcounseling/uploads/ResearchBrief10.1.pdf

The College Board Report is here:  http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/advocacy/policycenter/research-brief-measuring-impact-high-school-counselors-college-enrollment.pdf

Welcome Back!

By: Patrick O'Connor Ph.D

Counselors are coming back—or digging out—from a well-deserved holiday break, only to discover a handful of challenges and opportunities awaiting them at the office.  If you’ve had a good break, one of those challenges may be remembering your computer password; once you’re past that one, here are a few things to keep an eye on as you and your students settle back into the routine:

College admission Decisions—more ‘Maybes’ than ever before.  High school counselors will likely return to a number of seniors who received dismaying college news over the break, as many strong, competitive colleges ended up deferring a high number of students.  While this isn’t unusual at the highly selective colleges, more selective schools are asking good applicants for additional information like current grades—and these requests are being made of students who would have easily been admitted just a couple of years ago.

While the holidays may have given seniors time to sort out their options, the return to school gives them fewer distractions, and more reason to focus on the surprise news they received in December.  Be sure your first few days includes ample time in the hallways, so students can find you and set up times to see you. January may not be the best time to rework college lists, but given the curves some schools threw students, now is the time to refocus college plans.

Planning for life without the PLAN.  As reported in a previous column, ACT will discontinue its PLAN and EXPLORE tests at the end of this year, replacing them with the ASPIRE test, a series of assessments that can be used by all students in grades 3-11.  While these new tests may offer more fluidity in pupil accounting options, they can also create gaps in some long-standing testing plans of middle schools and high schools, especially since ASPIRE doesn’t use the same 1-36 grading scale of the ACT.

This change in testing may not be news to you, but you don’t want this to become news to your principal or district coordinator this spring, when it’s time to order tests.  Once the snow settles after  the first week of class, find some time to meet with everyone who could be impacted by this change, and make sure to think far down the road; October 1 isn’t time to realize your Fall Testing program has to change to accommodate ASPIRE.

“This New Class is So…” January is typically a short school month, but it’s often the first time teachers articulate their impression of the new ninth grade class in a high school, or the sixth grade class in a middle school.  For the first four months of school, they were all students from different feeder schools; by now, they’re a cohesive whole, and their tone and values are getting easier to read.

The time to capitalize on those impressions is now.  If you have a staff development day coming up, put together a brief survey and series of guided questions to create a discussion of what teachers are seeing in the academic, social, interactive, and moral development of these new students.  February – April is an ideal time to provide students with the programming and resources needed to understand more about themselves and the world around them, and faculty can tell you where the biggest needs lie.  Don’t miss this opportunity to create a collaborative opportunity to improve the quality of learning and living in your building, as you confirm your role as the school leaders in shaping affective climate.

The Year in Review, and a Look at What’s New

By:  Patrick O'Connor Ph.D

2013 was filled with consistent change, the kind of contradiction school counselors have to get used to in order to make long-term commitments to their schools and their profession.  New data isn’t out yet, but counselors continue to report larger caseloads and more time on tasks unrelated to counseling.  While policy makers are acknowledging something needs to change, the nuts and bolts of reform have yet to be worked out—and with Congress up for election next year, it’s unlikely any real change will occur in the few short months the House and Senate will be in session before their members hit the campaign trail.

There are many highlights and promising moments to focus on, so here is just a sampling of where we’ve been, and where we’re headed:

Counselors and Common Core Implementation of Common Core standards was ramped up in many states, leaving counselors in their usual ambivalent role of part cheerleader, part referee.  The higher order thinking skills Common Core purports to measure are welcome news to counselors, since analysis, synthesis, and evaluation are key qualities to emotionally healthy students.  At the same time, the assessment of Common Core outcomes may be even more odious and time-consuming than No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, which could lead to more testing and fewer electives for a generation of smart phone users that could use a little imagination stretching.  Counselors have generally responded to the possibilities Common Core offers; time will tell if these possibilities will be realized.

Common Application  High school counselors leveled uncommonly high criticism at a trusted counselor friend this fall, when the new version of Common Application debuted with significant flaws.  The most popular college application in the country, Common App 4 made it difficult for counselors to download transcripts; told students they hadn’t paid for an application when they had, and sent more than a few submitted applications to college—with nothing on them.  The fine tuning is complete, so school counselors have moved on to other heartbreaking issues—like NBC’s remake of The Sound of Music with Carrie Underwood.

First Lady Leads Counselor Fanfare  Counselor hopes for improved working conditions were nurtured by Michelle Obama’s publicly demonstrated interest in improving college access and readiness for low-income and first generation youth.  Launched in November, the initiative seeks to raise public awareness of the importance of earning an education after high school, and has garnered the attention of policy makers who can improve the training and working conditions of all school counselors.  Much good is expected of this effort in 2014.

2014 offers these challenges and opportunities for counselor growth:

• Middle- and high-school counselors will have to adjust to life without PLAN and EXPLORE, as ACT ends these successful tests and replaces them with the multi-grade ASPIRE exam.  Implementation seems easy enough—the question really lies with how well the results will relate to college readiness and Common Core achievement.

• College access and readiness seem to be pulling counselors in different directions, as some reports indicate a four year college degree is losing its economic prestige, while other reports accuse school counselors of sending high-achieving, low-income students to colleges that don’t really challenge them.  Overeducating and undermatching are two watchwords for 2014.

• Further change in K-16 education is expected as states begin to shift attitudes about undocumented students. Expect more colleges to offer in-state tuition to undocumented students who graduate from state high schools, and don’t be surprised if financial aid for these students becomes a bigger issue by year’s end.

So, you about ready to wind things down at school for the holidays?

By: Patrick O'Connor Ph.D

As a colleague once said, the end of a calendar year or school year never gives educators a chance to wind things down.  It’s more like running as fast as you can towards the edge of a cliff, where the number of things you have to do grows every day, requiring you to run faster and faster just to keep up.  When the last day of school is over, there is this momentary feeling of bliss, because you realize time is up, and you don’t have to run any more—but then you look back at everything that didn’t get done, and you go into emotional free fall.

That doesn’t have to happen this year.  With a few days left before the last bell rings, take a minute to take care of your students—and yourself—with these simple strategies:

Take care of the logistics.  No one likes to come back from break with a long list of phone messages and e-mails from parents and students asking for basic information— the link to that Web site you mentioned in a career presentation, the School Code to register for the ACT, the name of that article about effective communication with relatives over the holidays. 

Find five minutes to write down every post-holiday question or concern you’ve come back to in past school years, and write down the answers to those questions.  That’s the content of a newsletter you e-mail to all parents, students and faculty, and post on your Web site—then include that Web link on your e-mail Auto Reply, and put it on your outgoing voice message.  Not everyone who calls or e-mails over the holidays will help themselves, but this gives them every chance to try—and sends the clear message that you want to help them, even when you’re not there.

Take care of your clients.  The newsletter offers blanket advice to clients making inquiries, but the clients you’re seeing on a regular basis require support more tailored to their individual needs.  Now is the time to review the lesson plans for your counseling groups and the notes from your meetings with high-needs students.  At your last meeting before the holidays, set aside five minutes to talk about the articles, community-based resources, and coping strategies they have access to while school is closed.  It may even be wise to talk about the strategies students have used when faced with challenges over a weekend, or when you were away at a conference.  Showing them how they can take care of themselves affirms their understanding that you see them capable of taking care of themselves; that in itself goes a long way to making their December break manageable and enjoyable.

Ask for help.  Long school breaks can often be a time of anxiety for students who are otherwise very much in control of their lives.  Without the day to day activities of school, some students become overly focused on pending college decisions, struggles with relatives they only see at the holidays, or a self-perceived lack of growth and achievement this past year.

It’s impossible to keep an eye on every student during the last days of school, so call on your peers for support. A quick e-mail to teachers will give them the direction they need to guide students to you who may be approaching the season with some unusual angst—and you’d be amazed how reassuring that e-mail will be to the teachers, too.

Cry for Help, or Pity Party?

By: Patrick O'Connor

I once—and only once--- received a compliment about my dancing.  My wife and I were invited to a square dance, and the caller guided the group through sets of dances, each one a little more difficult than the last.  At the end of the third set, the caller motioned to us, so we walked over to him.  “You two are picking this up pretty quick” he said.  “Tell me, what do you do for a living?”

“We’re teachers” we said together.

With that, the caller took a couple of steps back, and turned ashen.  “No”, he said, “you can’t be teachers.  I’ve called dozens of square dances for teachers, and they never get past the first set before they start arguing with each other.  You can’t teach nothin’ to teachers.”

This episode came to mind when a counselor told me they felt isolated in their work.  Isolation is easy to understand; whether we’re classified as teachers or administrators, school counselors are in fact neither.  We really feel this when we’re having a bad day, because no one knows what we do, but they think they know what we do—and that doesn’t engender a lot of sympathy.

I suggested the counselor form a Counseling Advisory Committee. Established by school counseling guru Norm Gysbers, CACs are designed to help counseling offices review and implement their curriculum.  CAC members are picked by the counselor, and usually include teachers, the PTA president, representatives from the business and religious communities—people who care about kids who need to know what counselors do.  By combining their efforts, CAC members keep in close touch and create an atmosphere of support that’s the cure for counselor isolationism.

The response was understandable, but less than I had hoped for.  “Great idea, but I don’t even have time to do my job.  When am I going to have time to put this committee together?”

And that’s when the square dancing story came to mind.

There is no question school counselors are overworked and underappreciated, and there is little hope that any economic relief is in sight to solve that problem.  As we so often tell our students, when outside resources offer no sign of help, it’s time to help ourselves—so,  just as we tell our students, if we want something different, we have to do something different.

As trained school counselors, we know change has a price.  You have to find an extra hour to organize a committee; not everyone will want to serve; you may end up with the wrong mix of people, and you’ll have to start over, all while considering the number of students you could have seen during the hours you put in to a failed committee.

It’s certainly true there are no guarantees of success—but there are two things to keep in mind.  First, you may, in fact, succeed.  One school counselor used her PTA as a Counseling Advisory Committee, and told them the college counseling curriculum would really be enhanced if she could just get some funding to attend a national conference. The PTA sponsored her, she went to the conference, and the college choices for students soared—as did the scholarships they earned.

The second thing to remember is that if nothing changes, nothing changes.  This isn’t easy to hear, but important to remember when you, a well-connected adult with multiple college degrees, tell a sixteen year-old to be the change they want to become.

Good counseling is all about humility, empathy, and leading by example. The time for dysfunctional stasis is over--so grab your partners.