Chapter 3: Outcome-Based Assessment for Career Development in the Schools

“If this vital period is allowed to pass without the broad development and special training that belong to it, no amount of education in after years can ever redeem the loss” (Parsons, 1909, p. 165). Anyone who has worked in a school in the past decade is aware of the increased accountability and emphasis on assessment in schools. While career counseling has long been an integral part of sociopolitical reform (Herr, 2003), it is absent from specific mention in recent educational reform literature. There is a lack of a specific call for increased outcome-based assessment of career development interventions in schools. Assessing career development efforts in schools is important not because such assessment supports any given educational initiative, but because it is the right thing to do for students.