The need for greater accountability in school counseling practice is widely accepted within the profession. However, there are obstacles to making accountability efforts common practice among all school counselors. The Support Personnel Accountability Report Card (SPARC) is a tool that can be used to encourage and support these efforts. In this…

Discusses the obstacles and opportunities that school counselors face in attempting to conduct research in the public schools. Suggests that engaging in research and program evaluation may necessitate restructuring the goals of the guidance program, altering the priority of counselors' tasks, and modifying the expectations of various groups within…

A core component of many new educational programs funded under the "No Child Left Behind Act of 2001" is that they be based on scientifically based research. Like others in the educational community, counselors and counseling researchers welcome the opportunity to empirically test the validity of their practices and demonstrate that what…

With recent calls for accountability in school counseling, it is imperative that counselor educators are structuring the professional identity development of counselors-in-training through guided learning experiences with a focus on demonstrated effectiveness. The author presents examples of course objectives and learning experiences from five…

This article traces the evolution of accountability from the 1920s to 2003. Attention is given to expressions of concern about the need for accountability as well as recommendations for school counselors about how to be accountable. Then a sampling of empirical studies that provide evidence of the impact of guidance and counseling programs is…