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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