The history of school counseling in the United States of America varies greatly based on how local communities have chosen to provide academic, career, college readiness, and personal/social skills and competencies to K-12 children and their families based on economic and social capital resources and public versus private educational settings in what is now called a school counseling program.
History
Early years
The first school counselors in the United States emerged in the late 1800s, the time of the Industrial Revolution. However, the United States may not be the first place that school counseling was recognized. There have been traces of school counselors dating back to the late 16th century. An argument has been made that says that counseling and guidance principles began in ancient Greece and Rome with the philosophical teachings of Plato and Aristotle. Evidence suggests that techniques of modern-day counseling was practiced by Catholic priests in the Middle Ages. Tomaso Garzoni wrote a book called "Universal Plaza of all the Professions in the World" (1626), which was a text about career options. This relates to what a school counselor in high school and college would talk to students about today.
In the United States, the school counseling profession began as a vocational guidance movement. Jesse B. Davis is considered the first school counselor in the United States because he was the first to implement systematic guidance programs in schools. In 1907, he became the principal of a high school and encouraged the school English teachers to use compositions and lessons to relate career interests, develop character, and avoid behavioral problems. Many others during this time did the same. For example, in 1908, Frank Parsons, "Father of Vocational Guidance" established the Bureau of Vocational Guidance to assist young people in making the transition from school to work.
From the 1920s to the 1930s, school counseling and guidance grew because of the rise of progressive education in schools. National Association for College Admission Counseling is founded in 1937. This movement emphasized personal, social, moral development. Many schools reacted to this movement as anti-educational, saying that schools should teach only the fundamentals of education. This, combined with the economic hardship of the Great Depression, led to a decline in school counseling and guidance.
In the 1940s, the U.S. used psychologists and counselors to select, recruit, and train military personnel. This propelled the counseling movement in schools by providing ways to test students and meet their needs. Schools accepted these military tests openly. Also, Carl Rogers' emphasis on helping relationships during this time influenced the profession of school counseling.
1950s and 60s
In the 1950s the government established the Guidance and Personnel Services Section in the Division of State and Local School Systems. In 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I. Out of concern that the Russians were beating the U.S. in the space race, which had military implications, and that there were not enough scientists and mathematicians, the American government passed the National Defense Education Act, which spurred a huge growth in vocational guidance through large amounts of funding. Since the 1960s, the profession of school counseling has continued to grow as new legislation and new professional developments were established to refine and further the profession and improve education. On January 1, 2006, congress officially declared February 6–10 as National School Counseling Week.
The 1960s was also a time of great federal funding in the United States for land grant colleges and universities interested in establishing and growing what are now known as Counselor Education programs. School counseling began to shift from a focus exclusively on career development to a focus on student personal and social issues paralleling the rise of social justice and civil rights movements in the United States. It was also in the late 60s and early 1970s that Norm Gysbers began the work to shift from seeing school counselors as solitary professionals into a more strategic and systemic goal of having a comprehensive developmental school counseling program for all students K-12. His and his colleagues' work and research evidence showing strong correlations between fully implemented school counseling programs and student academic success was critical to beginning to show an evidence base for the profession especially at the high school level based on their work in the state of Missouri.
