Response to Ekstrom

I had several moments of déjà vu while reading this week.  The first occurred while reading the Ekstrom (2004) article.  Ekstrom begins by giving a brief history of how assessments have been used by school counselors.  The piece of history that stuck out to me the most was that, “in the wake of Sputnik in the late 1950s, school counselors were asked to ensure that students’ academic abilities, especially in science, were fully assessed and realized” (2004, p. 25).  I recalled hearing my two oldest uncles talk about what school was like for them during this time period.  To this day they hold grudges against the people, government mandates, and institutions that inflicted enormous amounts of work and expectations on them.  They felt violated by their educators.  They felt pressured to go into fields related to science and math, and once they got to college they were expected to outperform the Russians in science and ingenuity.  I faintly remember one of my uncles making a remark about “guidance counselors” who seemed to only be concerned with pushing students into certain types of careers, perhaps through the use of assessments like the ones Ekstrom refers to.  Ethically, this seems like an unacceptable practice.  If counselors were using assessments and then” interpreting” them with an agenda in mind, how could the results from the assessments have been fully accurate and/or unbiased?  I am also reminded of the many other instances of unethical testing that occurred around the same time period.  In my statistics class last year, we discussed the many issues associated with the Tuskegee Men’s Syphilis Study, in which African American men with syphilis were told that they were being given treatment for their disease, when in reality the researchers were simply interested in watching the progression of the disease to the point of watching the men die.  The researchers even went as far as banning the men involved in the study from receiving proper treatment (antibiotics, which would have cured them) in surrounding area hospitals.  Knowing that practices such as these once occurred sickens me.  The cruelty which human beings are capable of is astounding.  While the Code of Ethics which most professionals in various fields are now bound to in no way prevents unethical practices from happening, it is good to know that there is now a set standard of what is and is not acceptable practice so that unethical practice can be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.  Reading the Ekstrom article reminded me of the responsibility I will have as a counselor to use and interpret assessments appropriately, and the ramifications of failing to do so.

 Reference

Ekstrom, R.B., Elmore, P.B.,  Schaefer, W.D., Trotter, T.V., & Webster, B. (2004). A survey of assessment and evaluation activities of school counselors. Professional School Counseling, 8 (1), 24-30.