Reporting LCSW Pass Rate Data should be Added to CSWE’s Educational and Accreditation Standards

Most professions require that members have acquired a degree in their discipline and the passage of some form of standardized examination. For the field of clinical social work, this involves earning a Masters of Social Work (MSW) degree from a program accredited by the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) and subsequently completing the Licensed Clinical Worker Exam developed and prepared by the Association of Social Work Boards. Virtually all related disciplines require in their accreditation standards that degree granting programs report the licensure pass rates for their program graduates, and in many instances that the program’s graduates must pass their relevant license examinations at a certain threshold, e.g. 70%. This editorial will review the requirements that related disciplines maintain with respect to reporting pass rate data in a transparent manner, and in some cases obtain a certain level of pass rates. It is important that social work adopt similar standards for its programs, particularly given recent challenges to the professional status of our discipline.