Trial and Error: Understanding School Counselors' Preparation for and Experiences With School Choice Policy

• In Event: 67.054 - Sociological Contributions to School Choice Research: Evidence in a "Post-Truth" Era

Abstract

Objective
Research shows that lower-income parents tend to rely heavily on their schools and other formal channels for information about educational opportunities. Yet, school personnel are nearly invisible in the large body of research on school choice at the K-12 level. The expansion of school choice necessitates a deeper examination of the ways in which school actors experience their work with students and families on school choice and how these school personnel influence students’ school choices and assignments.

Framework and Methods
In this paper, we utilize interview and survey data from 88 school counselors in New York City during the 2014-15 school year (one per school) and administrative data on students’ school choices and high school assignments to answer questions about middle school counselors’ experiences implementing New York City’s mandatory high school choice policy. We examine the training and supports they receive, the challenges they face in their work, the challenges they identify among students and families participating in high school choice, and how they respond to these challenges. Drawing on the literature about school counselors’ role conflict and Maynard-Moody and Musheno’s (2000) extension of Lipsky’s (2010/1980) theories of street-level bureaucracy, we explore the factors associated with counselors acting more as “citizen agents” in service of their clients (students) rather than “discretionary state agents who act in response to rules, procedures, and law…” (Maynard-Moody & Musheno, 2000, p. 348). In addition, we approach questions about the ways in which expectations are communicated to counselors, how they are enforced and what this means for how counselors interpret and enact their duties guided by the original framers of institutional theory (Meyer & Rowan, 1977, 1978; Orton & Weick, 1990; Weick, 1976) and more recent scholarship reconsidering the idea of loose coupling (Spillane & Burch, 2006).

Findings and Significance
We find that most school counselors felt underprepared to engage in the work of guiding students and parents through a compulsory high school choice process which asks them to select 12 options from among 750 programs in 440 high schools. Counselors report neither being trained in their graduate programs nor being given sufficient instruction and support in this area once on the job to feel confident in managing high school choice for their 8th grade students. Moreover, there was wide variation in counselors’ understanding of what outreach and activities they were required to engaged in and in how they fulfilled these responsibilities. Finally, counselors felt constrained by other professional obligations to be able to devote as much time as they would like to working on high school admissions and learning more about the process and the available schools. We analyze evidence of counselors’ role conflict and consider the implications of the coexistence of loose and tight linkages within school buildings for understanding the work context of school counselors tasked with implementing school choice policy and for evaluating potential efforts to better support their work.

Authors

• Jennifer Jennings, Princeton University

• Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj, Seton Hall University