By Carolyn Jones, EdSource, November 8, 2021
Amid calls for schools to diversify their teaching staffs, some are saying those efforts should extend beyond the classroom — to the counseling office.
The needs of Black students, advocates argue, are too often overlooked by non-Black middle and high school counselors. Black students are more likely to be placed in classes that don’t prepare them for college or a career, subject to harsher discipline and less likely to have their mental health needs addressed, research shows.
“There’s a subconscious mindset that Black students, students in poverty, cannot learn,” said Lisa Andrews, a director at the California College Guidance Initiative and a counseling professor at the University of La Verne, near Pomona. “To change that, school counseling needs to be transformational and revolutionary.”
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