The counseling and guidance training institutes conducted under title V-B have aided considerably in preparing more and better qualified guidance and counseling personnel. During the 8 years that the program has existed, 19,399 counselors received training under this program (app. A, table 5). 3. Students are attending college and postsecondary vocational-technical schools in greater numbers Between 1958 and 1966, the total college enrollment increased 78 percent. However, through 1965, the number of students enrolling in college for the first time had increased 86 percent. The enrollment in postsecondary vocational-technical schools has increased almost 575 percent. 1 The Manpower Development and Training Act was passed in March 1962. Note: In 1958, 1,500,000 students graduated from high school; in 1965, 2,642,000 students graduated, an increase of 76 percent. The number of 1st-time college students in the fall of 1958 was 775,000; in 1965, this number had increased by 86 percent to 1,442,000. There were 3,236,000 students enrolled in college in the fall of 1958-59 and 5,526,000 in the fall of 1965, a rise of 78 percent. The vocational-technical school enrollment was 14,896 in 1958-59 and 100, 209 in the fall of 1965, a 573-percent increase. The latter increase is the most dramatic in any area of post-secondary education. No doubt, the increased enrollment reflects the availability of facilities that were developed through the Manpower Development and Training Act of 1962. 4. The school retention rate has increased In 1958, the school retention rate was 582 per thousand; by 1965, the rate had increased to 710 students per thousand. It is difficult to assess specifically the influence of title V-A in preventing school dropouts. State education agencies, however, are reporting that identification of the potential dropout and early counseling, as well as counseling those who already have dropped out (through summer dropout programs, for example), have made a distinct difference in the retention rate. Note: In 1958, the year before title V went into effect, 582 of each 1,000 1950-51 5th-graders graduated. By 1965, 710 of each 1,000 1957-58 5th-graders graduated, a 22-percent increase in the retention rate. 5. State education agency guidance staffs have been improved State guidance supervising programs have also been improved through title V-A. In 1958, States employed 99 guidance supervisors and by 1967, the 54 States and territories and the District of Columbia employed over 300 State guidance supervisors. *The collection of this information was discontinued in 1964-65. (The number of professional guidance personnel serving at the State level increased from 99 in 1958-59 to 324 in 1964-65. Full-time equivalent refers to the amount of time devoted by two or more individuals to equal that of one full-time professional.) 6. Standardized testing to identify abilities has been stimulated Title V-A permits the U.S. Office of Education to enter into contracts with testing agencies to administer tests to nonpublic school pupils. During 1965-66, more than 2 million standardized scholastic ability and achievement tests were administered under NDEA in the public elementary schools; about 7 million in secondary schools; and more than 300,000 tests were adminstered by State education agencies in the nonpublic schools. Another 297,735 tests were administered to 273,467 nonpublic school pupils in 39 States under direct contracts from USOE with testing agencies at a total cost of $181,848.00. Of this amount, the Office of Education paid one-half from funds allotted to respective States. 1 1965-66 was the 1st full school year that title V-A had been extended to elementafy schools. Note: One of the tools used to identify the aptitudes and abilities of students is the standardized test. As the number of counselors grew, public school standardized testing increased. Year: 1958-59 1965-66 1 Title V-A was extended to elementary schools in 1964. Number of tests administered (nonpublic) 202, 139 1 640, 140 Note: Standardized tests administered in nonpublic secondary schools under title V-A increased from 202,139 in 1958-59 to 640,140 in 1965-66. The 1965-66 testing includes both elementary and secondary schools. 8. Evaluation of guidance and counseling programs has been carried out on an increasing scale More important than quantitative aspects of guidance and counseling but more difficult to portray is what happens to children and youth. The Guidance and Personnel Services Branch is conducting the National Cooperative Study of Guidance through contract with the University of Missouri, to analyze scientifically what happens in the guidance and counseling process. The study will identify student, situational, and guidance variables and compare these statistically to determine the overall effectiveness of guidance services. More specifically, it will provide an inventory of effective guidance practices, provide the basis for establishing guidance programs that contribute materially to the individual's educational, occupational, and personal success, and identify essential elements of programs for the preparation of counselors. C. THE FUTURE of GuiDANCE AND COUNSELING A most significant phenomenon, though not as graphic as statistics and ratios, is the self-examination taking place in the guidance profession. Some insight into this thinking can be gained from the following statement made by Prof. David V. Tiedeman, Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, during an address before the 1965 Conference on Counselor Development in American Society: *** We hold it to be self-evident now that clients and workers need contact (1) earlier, (2) more frequently, (3) more intensively, (4) more comprehensively, and (5) longer than we now allow for in our social process of moving persons from early childhood into adult life. Clients and workers also need working independence, particularly an independence capable of sustaining the loneliness of forced leisure and retirement to say nothing of forced job and home dislocation and sometimes actual loss of jobs and homes. A new social fabrication is needed for the Great Society in order to provide continuity of income and subsequent security as well as to overcome the decrease of regular and meaningful social contact which will result from less work and more contact with machine. The |