2nd Annual Survey Shows School Counselors and Administrators Want to Focus on College and Career, but See Training and Accountability Gaps

Without existing national data on how to best engage and utilize school counselors in today’s education reform efforts, the College Board Advocacy & Policy Center’s National Office for School Counselor Advocacy (NOSCA), in collaboration with Civic Enterprises and Hart Research Associates, commissioned the second 2012 National Survey of School Counselors, True North: Charting the Course to College and Career Readiness. The survey was administered to a nationally representative sample of 2,890 middle and high school counselors and supplemented by a second survey of 439 school administrators.

“As a nation, we need to ensure we are fully leveraging school counselors to advance college and career achievement, while aligning this clear mission with their training, support and accountability,” said Pat Martin, assistant vice president of NOSCA. “Counselors are ready to lead; administrators are prepared to support them; and students in schools across America need their help. This year’s report helps point the way.”

The 2012 survey provides insights on school counselor efficacy, training, accountability and resources: 

1. Efficacy: Counselors and administrators agree on counselors’ ability to increase college and career readiness for students.

2. Training: There is a strong correlation between counselor preparation and their students’ outcomes, but counselor training is currently inadequate.

3. Accountability: Counselors and administrators support measures of accountability.

4. Resources: Counselors can be at the leading edge of making increased postsecondary and career readiness a reality, but they cannot do this work in isolation.

In addition to the national survey, the eight largest states were targeted for an oversample to report on state-specific information: California (218 completes), Florida (186), Illinois (177), New York (237), Ohio (173), Pennsylvania (221), Texas (291) and Virginia (139). Their results on select findings presented in this report are available in the appendix of the full report.