This handbook was written to heighten public awareness and understanding about child abuse and to serve as a practical aid for persons who work with children, who are in the field of child abuse prevention, and who are mandated to report suspected cases of child abuse under the California Child Abuse Reporting Law. It provides an overview of the…

Following up on the work of a task force that studied the dropout problem in the Los Angeles Unified School District and developed recommendations for addressing that problem, this report describes current dropout prevention efforts and proposals for expansion and presents recommendations for new approaches. Six major categories of programs are…

The failure of deinstitutionalization to provide an appropriate place for the mentally ill to live in the communities is the topic of this report. The history of how community-based housing programs fell victim to the same coordination problems that generally plagued deinstitutionalization efforts is discussed. Problems discussed include: (1)…

This report contains materials developed by a committee appointed to review school nursing in Wisconsin; to make recommendations directed at the future mission, objectives, and functions of school nursing; and to address the relationship of school nursing certification to these recommendations. Recommendations made to the Wisconsin Department of…

The Research in Teacher Education (RITE) study is currently examining in depth two selected state-mandated induction programs for beginning teachers. The sample includes 16 first year teachers (along with the teachers, administrators, and other educators selected to work with them) situated in 13 schools in 4 districts in 2 states. Data were…

The study looks at sources of income, both legal and practical, identifies reasonable levels for library support, compares sources of governmental revenue and the costs of providing adequate library services, and develops mathematical formulas that can be used as measures of the city's or county's ability to support library services. The study…

This report reviews recent state initiatives in education reform, including state legislation, state programs, and decisions by state boards of education. The initiatives have been organized according to the eight recommendations for improvement made by the Task Force on Education for Economic Growth. These recommendations were to (1) develop…

The manual is intended for training surrogate parents of handicapped children according to Minnesota and federal statutes and regulations. Section 1 provides an overview of the surrogate parent program, noting relevant legislation, functions, rights, and responsibilities. Section 2 reviews the history of special education and related state and…

In this decade, the pervasiveness of wife abuse across all segments of society has become more evident to the public, leading to a redefinition of it as criminal. This social change, based on the collective response of feminists, battered women's advocates, and legislators, has altered laws on family violence in some 43 states. While new laws…

The report, based on a survey of state directors of programs for the gifted, is intended to provide an accurate portrait of gifted education throughout the 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Guam. Data are presented tabularly and by the specific responses to survey questions for the following survey topics: state policies and practices; funding for…

This guide to the administration of the Library Systems Act for the State of Texas begins by presenting the text of the Library Systems Act. The relevant regulations from the Texas Administrative Code are then provided, covering such topics as standards for accreditation of a major resource system of libraries, minimum standards for accreditation…

This paper describes meetings of the American Indian Study Committee of the Wisconsin Legislative Council and background related to 1987 Assembly Bill 316 on the definition of "American Indian." This definition is relevant to qualification for minority group business preferences in state purchasing and state construction projects, the…

The Chronicle contains two major articles and several smaller articles concerned with education of the gifted. "Special Educational Services for Gifted Students in Arizona: Description of Programs and Analysis of the Short-Term Impact of the State's Legislative Mandate," by S. Cohn and V. Riccardo, reports on a survey of all Arizona…

The doctrine of "fighting words" was first articulated by the United States Supreme Court in 1942 in the case of Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire when it declared one classificaton of language as outside the bounds of constitutional guarantees. Since then the Court has continually redrawn the line defining which speech is constitutionally…

The effects of New Hampshire's guardianship law on other disciplines in dealings with disabled persons are examined. Transdisciplinary efforts to promote more normalizing methods of protection are noted, and the bias underlying many service systems (that disabled persons do not have a right to make wrong choices) is exposed. A multi-layered…