The purpose of this guide is to provide local Head Start program decision-makers with a tool that will be useful in developing needs assessments appropriate to their communities, whether urban or rural. Although the guide focused on community needs assessments for planning mainstream services for children with handicapping conditions, its…

This booklet addresses the difficulties of comparing and drawing meaning from dropout data prepared by different agencies, and examines the characteristics of students--and of schools--that place students at risk for leaving school prematurely. The booklet describes prevention programs and presents evidence on their effectiveness. It reviews…

This discussion of collaboration between general and special educators focuses on selection of instructional interventions in mainstream settings and curriculum-based methods of evaluating programs designed to increase the academic performance of students with and without disabilities. It then suggests ways to incorporate data-based decision…