William E. Gordon

Reallocation of Educational Responsibility among Schools, Agencies, Students, and NASW

Abstract Graduate social work schools are failing as gatekeepers to the profession. Variation in admissions, course, and grade requirements, with accountability left to the schools in certifying the beginning practice level, is regarded as highly dysfunctional. The writers, utilizing a competency-based approach, propose that schools do what they are best equipped to do—prepare for practice, after which agencies accredited by the profession would teach the student to practice, with final certification of competence in practice resting with a public-based licensure board. This rearrangement will produce accountability that should improve teaching, learning, and practice.