The Future of School Psychology: Perspectives on Effective Training

The need to reform our schools toward greater student success has been sounded across the country and in every community, school district, and school. In our own profession, the need for school reform and school psychological reform has been evident for a long while. Yet, significantly, the expected and needed role of the school psychologist in the 21st Century poses serious challenges to the current system of school psychology training. Although there has been significant progress in the development of training and credentialing standards in school psychology during the last half of the current century, many training and credentialing issues exist and remain unresolved, and some pose barriers to the delivery of effective services to students, their families, and teachers. This article addresses some of these training challenges by describing components of effective training programs, including characteristics of effective faculty, students, and training processes.