FEINGOLD WORKS TO SUPPORT ADDITIONAL FUNDING FOR
SCHOOL COUNSELORS
Additional Funding Would Improve Educational Guidance for Students
and Families
April 10, 2008
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) is leading
an effort to increase federal funding for school counseling programs
to ensure our nation’s children are getting the educational, social,
and health services support they need as students. In a letter to the
Senate Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations
Subcommittee, Feingold and 10 of his Senate colleagues called on the
committee to provide the highest fiscally responsible increase in funding
for the Elementary and Secondary School Counseling Program (ESSCP) for
fiscal year 2009. ESSCP is a competitive grant program in which local
school districts can apply to the Department of Education for grants
to expand their school counseling programs. Despite the vital role school
counselors, school social workers, and school psychologists fill in
public education, many schools lack the resources needed to properly
meet counseling needs.
“Improving the quality of education for our students, especially
low income and disadvantaged students, means ensuring that their health
and social needs, as well as academic needs, are met,” Feingold
said. “All too often, the standardized testing focus of the No
Child Left Behind Act draws attention away from the other daily challenges
our students face, challenges that impact their academic achievement.
Increasing resources for school counseling programs will help schools
provide additional academic and non-academic support for students.”
School counselors fulfill a vital role in American public education
and supplement the important academic work that goes on in our nation’s
classrooms. They provide valuable guidance and support to students and
their families through academic and social programming. Unfortunately
this nation still has a long way to go in providing adequate pupil services
to our nation’s students and many schools report high student-to-counselor
ratios that can prevent students from receiving the counseling services
they need. Increasing funding for the ESSCP is critical in helping lower
the current student-to-counselor ratios.
Steve Schneider from the Wisconsin School Counselor Association said,
“School counselors play such a critical part of addressing the
needs of the whole child in the educational setting. Whether it be by
helping an individual student work through a difficult personal situation,
or working with a team of teachers to develop an academic plan for success
for a student in need, or sitting with parents and encouraging them
to support the dreams of their child, it's evident that our schools
are enriched by the presence of school counselors. It is saddening that
many school districts in our country are not able to provide school
counselors to their students due to lack of funding. That is why the
federal funds available through the ESSCP are so critical. For many
school districts, it is the only way they can provide counseling services
to their students. Senator Feingold's willingness to support and take
action on behalf of underserved students by calling for an increase
in funding for the ESSCP is a tremendous display of understanding that
student achievement will improve with the adequate presence of school
counselors to serve the needs of the whole child.”
Feingold was one of 10 senators who opposed the No Child Left Behind
Act when it passed in 2001 because of the act’s largely unfunded,
annual federal testing mandate. Feingold has introduced two legislative
initiatives to help reform and improve No Child Left Behind. Feingold’s
Improving Student Testing Act would reform NCLB’s annual testing
mandates and encourage states and local districts to use methods other
than high-stakes standardized testing to measure the academic progress
of students. The Student Breakfast and Education Improvement Act, which
Senator Feingold introduced with Senator Kohl, would provide grants
to expand universal school breakfast programs to help address students’
nutritional needs.
A copy of the letter can be viewed here.
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