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US librarians and library supporters have very little to lift their spirits these days. Reading the library press is a very depressing pastime. The news is wide‐scale cuts in library funding at all levels of government as fiscal conservatives hold the power in the congress and in state governments.

Research has documented post-school outcomes for students with emotional and behavioral disabilities and learning disabilities continue to be poor. To improve student outcomes for these populations, research has recommended implementing evidence-based practices and predictors in the classroom. The purpose of this chapter is to identify evidence-based practices and predictors targeted for students with emotional and behavioral disorders and learning disabilities in the area of secondary transition. We identify and briefly describe 12 evidence-based practices and 14 evidence-based predictors for students with emotional and behavioral disorders and learning disabilities. Implications for practice and suggestions for future research are also discussed.

School inclusion of students with disabilities in ordinary classes is a multidimensional phenomena that may be evaluated with respect to different dimensions: social acceptance, social interactions, and supports toward the student with disabilities, teachers’ and parents’ attitudes toward inclusion, and students’ mental representations of the peer with disabilities. The purpose of the present review is to present several methods for evaluating school inclusion: sociometric techniques, systematic observation, questionnaires, and student drawings. Additionally, an integrated use of these methods is presented to plan interventions to facilitate school integration.

Assessing learners with extensive support needs has traditionally been rooted in deficit perspectives, in which student incapacities are highlighted. We start this chapter with an overview of this historical view and identify its shortcomings. Next, we identify alternate assessment and progress monitoring as key efforts for shifting the lens from deficit-oriented assessment toward more grade-aligned, inclusive-, and strengths-based strategies. We also identify strategies for comprehensive assessment that can continue this shift in approach. Finally, we conclude with ideas for future directions in assessing learners with extensive support needs.

IN JUNE, I broke my 18‐month‐long moratorium on public speaking—a blessed rest!—to travel to the Isle of Wight to talk to the members of HATRICS assembled for their AGM. I attempted to repay the kindly hospitality of Hampshire County Librarian John Beard, IoW County Librarian Len Mitchell and his Deputy, Mike Howley, by a lengthy disquisition on the endlessly fascinating topic of myself, at the end of which I woke up the assembled company in time for tea by banging on the table with my trumpet, whereat they sneezed and expressed themselves well satisfied.

VINE is produced at least four times a year with the object of providing up‐to‐date news of work being done in the automation of library housekeeping processes, principally in the UK. It is edited and substantially written by Tony McSean, Information Officer for Library Automation based in Southampton University Library and supported by a grant from the British Library Research and Development Department. Copyright for VINE articles rests with the British Library Board, but opinions expressed in VINE do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the British Library. The subscription to VINE is £10 per year and the subscription period runs from January to December.

VINE is produced at least four times a year with the object of providing up‐to‐date news of work being done in the automation of library housekeeping processes, principally in the UK. It is edited and substantially written by Tony McSean, Information Officer for Library Automation based in Southampton University Library and supported by a grant from the British Library Research and Development Department. Copyright for VINE articles rests with the British Library Board, but opinions expressed in VINE do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the British Library. The subscription to VINE is £10 per year and the subscription period runs from January to December.

This paper aims to explore parent and school leader partnerships to engage high poverty and minority families against the backdrop of transformative educators fulfilling federal policy advice on parent involvement in schools. Policies encouraging school and home collaboration are considered in an urban school district.

Qualitative methods explore perspectives of parents and educators regarding parent engagement supporting student advancement. Data collection includes individual and group interviews, document analysis and observations.

Findings suggest that federal policy encouraged collaboration between parents and educational leaders. District initiatives contextualized parent involvement models of school home collaboration. Parents believe parental engagement is essential for student advancement but are uncertain about how to participate. Opportunities exist for transformative leadership in the district and schools.

Research implications suggest that policy can be a catalyst for parent involvement activities. Parents learn that opportunities exist for them to support children in schools and that educational leaders can be partners and advocates. Understandings are extended for educational leaders regarding parents as collaborators supporting students. Finally, policy makers are urged to be mindful in crafting legislation about school home partnerships.

This paper fills literature gaps about parent and educational leader collaboration in advancing parental involvement. Educational leaders are in prime positions to cultivate trusting linkages with high poverty and minority parents by sharing advocacy for students. Transformative educational administrators who strive for equity in schools can further school home alliances. Policy can present opportunities for educators to embrace parental involvement.

Anne Bartlett is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago. She holds a degree in Sociology and Social Policy from the University of the West of England and Masters degree in Sociology from the University of Chicago. Prior to this, she worked in various capacities in the British government for over fifteen years. Her Ph.D. research centers on the changing nature of political subjectivity in London, particularly as it pertains to the lives of refugees and migrants. Her other areas of interest include sociological theory, globalization, human rights and evolving forms of political culture.Katie Cangemi is a student at DePaul University.Terry Nichols Clark is Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago. He holds MA and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia University, and has taught at Columbia, Harvard, Yale, the Sorbonne, University of Florence, and UCLA. He has worked at the Brookings Institution, The Urban Institute, Department of Housing and Urban Development, and US Conference of Mayors. His books include Citizen Politics in Post-Industrial Society, City Money, The New Political Culture, and Urban Innovation. Since 1982 he has been Coordinator of the Fiscal Austerity and Urban Innovation (FAUI) Project, which includes a data base of over 10,000 municipalities in up to 35 countries. It is the most extensive study to date of local government in the world, including data, some 700 participants, a budget exceeding $20 million, and 50 published books, much available on the website http://www.src.uchicago.edu/depts/faui/archive.htmlRichard Florida is the author of the groundbreaking book, The Rise of the Creative Class: And How Its Transforming Work, Leisure Community and Everyday Life Basic Books 2002, stressing the rise of creativity as an economic force. He is the H. John Heinz III Professor of Economic Development at Carnegie Mellon University, where he is founder and co-director of the Software Industry Center. He has been a visiting professor at MIT and Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is co-author of five other books, including Industrializing Knowledge; Beyond Mass Production and The Breakthrough Illusion, and more than 100 articles in academic journals. He earned his Bachelor’s degree from Rutgers College and Ph.D. from Columbia University.Gary Gates works in the Population Studies Center of The Urban Institute in Washington DC 20037. He completed his Ph.D. at Carnegie Mellon University, and is a leading researcher on gays in the U.S.Edward Glaeser is a Professor of Economics at Harvard University. He teaches urban and social economics and microeconomic theory. He has published dozens of papers on cities, economic growth, and law and economics. In particular, his work has focused on the determinants of city growth and the role of cities as centers of idea transmission. He also edits the Quarterly Journal of Economics. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1992.Pushpam Jain completed a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago.Jed Kolko is at the Department of Economics, Harvard University.Lauren Langman is Professor of Sociology at Loyola University, Chicago. His interests include alienation studies, Marxist sociology and cultural sociology. Recent publications include: Suppose They Gave a Culture War and No-one Came: Zippergate and the Carnivalization of Political Culture, American Behavioral Scientist (December, 2002); The Body and the Mediation of Hegemony: From Subject to Citizen to Audience, in Richard Brown (Ed.) Body, Self and Identity (University of Minnesota Press, 2002); From the Poetics of Pleasure to the Poetics of Protest, in Paul Kennedy (Ed.) Identity in the Global Age (Macmillan & Palmore, 2001); with Douglas Morris and Jackie Zalewski, Globalization, Domination and Cyberactivism, in Wilma A. Dunaway (Ed.) The 21st Century World-System: Systemic Crises and Antisystemic Resistance (Greenwood Press, 2002).Richard Lloyd teaches at Vanderbilt University, he completed his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago. His research interests include urban culture. Postindustrial economy, and labor force participation.Dennis Merritt completed a BA at the University of Chicago and MA at DePaul University. He was Analysis Manager of the Fiscal Austerity and Urban Innovation Project for four years.Albert Saiz is in the Research Department, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. He completed a Ph.D. in Economics at Harvard.Lenka Siroky studied at the Universities of Prague and Budapest, spent two years at the University of Chicago, and is currently studying at Harvard University.Kenneth Wong is Professor of Public Policy and Education and Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University. He also serves as Associate Director of the Peabody Center for Education Policy at Vanderbilt University. He was Associate Professor in the Department of Education and the Social Sciences Division at the University of Chicago, where he earned his doctorate in political science. He has conducted research in American government, urban school reform, state finance and educational policies, intergovernmental relations, and federal educational policies (Title I). He is author of Funding Public Schools: Politics and Policy (1999), and City Choices: Education and Housing (1990), and a co-author of When Federalism Works (1986). He is currently the President of the Politics of Education Association.Alexei Zelenev is an Associate Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. He received his Bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Chicago.

Epidemiology is often described as “the basic science of public health” (Savitz, Poole & Miller, 1999; Syme & Yen, 2000). This description suggests both a close association with public health practice, and the separation of “pure” scientific knowledge from its application in the messy social world. Although the attainability of absolute objectivity is rarely claimed, epidemiologists are routinely encouraged to “persist in their efforts to substitute evidence for faith in scientific reasoning” (Stolley, 1985, p. 38) and reminded that “public health decision makers gain little from impassioned scholars who go beyond advancing and explaining the science to promoting a specific public health agenda” (Savitz et al., 1999, p. 1160). Epidemiology produces authoritative data that are transformed into evidence which informs public health. Those data are authoritative because epidemiology is regarded as a neutral scientific enterprise. Because its claims are grounded in science, epidemiological knowledge is deemed to have “a special technical status and hence is not contestable in the same way as are say, religion or ethics” (Lock, 1988, p. 6). Despite the veneer of universality afforded by its scientific pedigree, epidemiology is not a static or monolithic discipline. Epidemiological truth claims are embodied in several shifting paradigms that span the life of the discipline. Public health knowledges and practices, competing claims internal and external to epidemiology, and structural conditions (such as current political economies, material technologies, and institutions) provide important contexts in which certain kinds of epidemiological knowledge are more likely to emerge.