Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

We study the effects of school counselor staff on the academic achievement, educational attainment, and juvenile detention rates of high school students. Our research design relies on the within-school variation in counselor caseloads associated with staff turnover and the creation of new counselor positions. We find little evidence that counselor staffing levels affect student outcomes. We find some evidence that the timing of turnover is related to pre-existing trends in student outcomes. However, this does not appear to be the case with variation in counseling services generated by the introduction of new staff positions, which produce similar results.