Proof Points: The problem with the 250 ratio

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By Jill Barshay

It often strikes me that so many numbers in education are frequently repeated but aren’t grounded in fact or solid research. The 30-million word gap between high- and low-income babies wasn’t well calculated. The giant “2 sigma” result Benjamin Bloom got from personal tutoring hasn’t been replicated in larger studies. By chance, while reporting another story, I learned that a Harvard graduate student, Tara Nicola, had discovered that the most central number in the school counseling profession -- the recommendation to hire one counselor for every 250 students -- was merely the subjective opinion of a public figure from more than 60 years ago.

(And yes, I too cited the questionable 250 number in my April 2020 story.)

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Key Findings

James Bryant Conant, a former president of Harvard University, first recommended the 250 student-to-counselor ratio in his 1959 bestseller, “The American High School Today.”
The figure was based on Conant’s “personal appraisal” of what high schools should do after surveying 120 schools and visiting 75 of them in the 1950s.
The American School Counselor Association and scholars are just beginning to quantitatively study what the optimal counselor caseload should be.

Lit Review

Tara P. Nicola, 2020 working paper, “Is 250 the Magic Number? The History of the Nationally Recommended Student-to-Counselor Ratio,” Harvard University.
James Bryant Conant, The American High School Today: A First Report to Interested Citizens (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1959).
Hoyt, Kenneth B. (1955), What Should be the Pupil Load for the School Counselor? The Personnel and Guidance Journal, 34: 86-88.
Christine Mulhern (January 2020 working paper) Beyond Teachers: Estimating Individual Guidance Counselors’ Effects on Educational Attainment, Harvard University.
Savitz-Romer, M. (2019). Fulfilling the promise: Reimagining school counseling to advance student success. Harvard Education Press.
Measuring the Impact of School Counselor Ratios on Student Outcomes, Feb. 1, 2019, Jennifer L. Parzych, Ph.D., Southern Connecticut State University; Peg Donohue, Ph.D., Central Connecticut State University; Amy Gaesser, Ph.D., The College at Brockport, SUNY; Ming Ming Chiu, Ph.D., The Education University of Hong Kong, ASCA Research Report.
ASCA National Model Implementation and Appropriate School Counselor Ratios Promote More Informed College Decision-Making, Feb. 1, 2019, Richard T. Lapan, Ph.D., University of Massachusetts – Amherst Timothy Poynton, Ph.D., University of Massachusetts – Boston Richard Balkin, Ph.D., University of Mississippi Lindsay Jones, Graduate Student, University of Massachusetts – Amherst, ASCA Research Report.
ASCA Research Grant Program—Special Project 2020 Call for Proposals. https://www.schoolcounselor.org/asca/media/asca/Press%20releases/2020-ASCA-Grants-RFP-RATIOS.pdf