At the outset of the new 2009-10 school year, ACAeNews for School Counselors is pleased to present the views of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on the current and emerging role of the professional school counselor and the needs of students, families, schools, and communities. We thank Secretary Duncan for responding to ACA!

1. In your view how important is the role of the professional school counselor in the promotion of academic achievement and helping students achieve their full educational and career potential?

All of us who care deeply about children have a vital role to play in helping them achieve, so we need to make sure that all of them have a connection with an adult at the school. Counselors play a vital role in opening up options, raising students' expectations for themselves, and encouraging students to reach for goals. The counselor can be the person who notices if they do not come to school, or show up for class, someone who they can talk to if they have concerns, or who presses them if they are in danger of failing.

I spent seven years running the Chicago Public Schools - where I learned some important lessons. To help students find their way and make these essential connections, I added post-secondary counselors to schools. They helped students navigate both the high school and college enrollment process. We had a strong Jobs for America partnership, where school-based counselors would help at risk students connect to programs and internships to provide them with the necessary skills to be successful after graduation. As part of the transition to eighth and ninth grade, we had a summer program that included a rigorous counseling component to better prepare the students both academically and socially for their new environment.

Navigating the many options open to students is hard. Often students are not aware of what is available to them both at their school, from their district, or in their community. This is where counselors can step up to help them, understand them, and be there for them.

2. School counselors today are achieving an expanded identity in the provision of school-based mental health services. What are your thoughts on this new identity?

In Chicago, we set up 150 community schools open 12 hours a day offering classes to adults and students. We provided mental health counseling for students and families. Our school personnel, our school guidance counselors and our teachers worked extra hours, and many of them took on that responsibility because they were committed to the school's success. Schools must support the social and emotional needs of students and engage the whole family -- and this may mean an expanded identity for not only school counselors, but also for all of the people who work with students. I am in favor of rewarding all school personnel who go the extra mile because without them many of our students will fall through the cracks, just get by, or drop out.

Students remember the teacher or counselor who inspires them---all of us do. It stays with us forever. The counselors and other educators who commit those everyday acts of kindness and love and never ask for anything in return are the people who can help us turnaround our most troubled students and underserved schools. The people who counsel troubled teens, take phone calls at night, and reach into their pockets for lunch money for children who are too ashamed to ask---those are the people who deserve to be recognized; they make all the difference in students' lives.

3. How can schools do a more effective job of addressing the needs of the underserved in America, individuals who all too often become the underrepresented in higher education and in many other elements of our society? How can counselors be more effective here?

One of my greatest concerns is finding a way to fix chronically under-performing schools. There are 5,000 schools - roughly five percent of the total - that have failed to make progress year after year. In some of them, the leadership has been replaced, but it has not made a difference. Many good teachers have left and too few good teachers have replaced them. Many dedicated parents and ambitious students also have left and found other options. The social and physical conditions around some of these schools are horrific. They are often unsafe, underfunded, and challenged in so many ways that the situation can feel hopeless. Is it any wonder that students in these schools fail to graduate, do not attempt to go on to higher education, or cannot make it through college? This is a national problem -- urban, rural, and suburban.

There has to be a way to fix these schools. We must hold administrators, teachers, and other school personnel accountable, demand change and, where necessary, compel it. They have a moral obligation to do the right thing for children in these schools - no matter how painful and unpleasant.

I closed about 60 schools in Chicago - some for low enrollment - and some explicitly because they were failing academically. We reopened about a dozen of these schools with new leadership and staff. Some are run by the district, and some are run by the Academy for Urban School Leadership, a nonprofit partner. Today, these schools are doing much better. Our first two turnarounds have more than tripled the percentage of kids meeting standards in five years. One elementary school saw a five point jump in the percentage of students meeting standards in the first year, and another reduced absences by five days per student in the first year.

Turnarounds aren't easy. Closing down and starting over requires you to build trust with parents, teachers, and everyone involved with the school, but it's the right thing to do.

In schools like these, the students need extra personal attention. This is the place where good counselors can really help our most underserved populations. They can be engaged, collaborate with teachers, and make kids and the classroom the focus. They can help change the school culture.

I have seen it work in many schools all over America, so I have hope that with enough effort and determination, and the right people, we can do a more effective job of addressing the needs of all students.

4. Where do you stand on support for research into evidenced-based school counseling practices and assisting school counselors in their quest for relevant professional development and training experiences?

Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), the Department will be asking states for assurances that they will be using data; they will be asked to collect, publish, analyze and act on basic information regarding the quality of classroom teachers, annual student improvements, college readiness, the effectiveness of state standards and assessments, progress on removing charter caps and interventions in turning around underperforming schools. If schools are going to be successful in improving student achievement, then states, districts, schools, teachers, and counselors need to develop data-driven effective practices that will help their students succeed.

Our schools have many challenges, but we have to tell the truth about what is wrong and what will help them. We need to be open and honest about the challenges and the barriers. If we agree that children need more time -- then we must give it to them. If we agree that teachers need more support, then we must give it to them. If we agree that school personnel need assistance and training in order to be successful with students, then they must get it.

We must recognize and reward the people who make a difference in our schools. We must work together to fix our schools.

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Arne Duncan is the ninth U.S. Secretary of Education. In his confirmation hearings, Duncan called education "the most pressing issue facing America," adding that "preparing young people for success in life is not just a moral obligation of society" but also an "economic imperative." "Education is also the civil rights issue of our generation," he said, "the only sure path out of poverty and the only way to achieve a more equal and just society."

Prior to his appointment, Duncan served as the chief executive officer of the Chicago Public Schools, a position to which he was appointed by Mayor Richard M. Daley, from June 2001 through December 2008, becoming the longest-serving big-city education superintendent in the country. Prior to that post, Duncan ran the non-profit education foundation Ariel Education Initiative (1992-1998), which helped fund a college education for a class of inner-city children under the I Have A Dream program. He was part of a team that later started a new public elementary school built around a financial literacy curriculum, the Ariel Community Academy, which today ranks among the top elementary schools in Chicago.