The Relationships between School Counselor Ratios and Student Outcomes in One Predominantly Hispanic Texas School District
Abstract
Research has demonstrated that lower school counselor ratios are associated with better student outcomes: attendance, discipline and achievement. The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) recommends a student-counselor ratio of 250:1 to best support and address the needs of students. However, student-counselor ratios are much higher, diminishing the effectiveness of school counselors.The purpose of this study is to determine if school counselor ratios are related to campus attendance, campus State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) or End-of-Course (EOC) testing performance, and campus discipline for substance use or other reasons, while considering the ethnicity and gender of students in each grade level (elementary, Kindergarten through 8th grade, middle and high school) and the percentage of economically disadvantaged students at each campus. This quantitative study utilizes secondary institutional data and correlational analyses to identify the relationships between ratios and student outcomes in one predominantly Hispanic school district in Texas. The findings offered limited evidence of significant relationships between counselor ratios and student outcomes with a relatively small sample of school campuses. However, the results of the study add to the limited research available regarding school counselor ratios and student outcomes in Texas, especially in districts serving predominately Hispanic student populations. The work of counseling programs to implement the ASCA National Model in spite of high student-counselor ratios is discussed.
Subject Area
School counseling|Educational leadership|Hispanic American studies
Recommended Citation
Ortega, Myra, "The Relationships between School Counselor Ratios and Student Outcomes in One Predominantly Hispanic Texas School District" (2021). ETD Collection for University of Texas, El Paso. AAI28497519.
https://scholarworks.utep.edu/dissertations/AAI28497519