Report Outline
Broadening Attack on Child Subnormality
Search for Means of Prevention
Education for the Mentally Retarded
Special Focus
Broadening Attack on Child Subnormality
The concern felt by President Kennedy for the welfare of persons born with mental handicaps, evidenced by his appointment of a special presidential panel on mental retardation, has given strong impetus to current planning for a broad-scale attack on this long-neglected problem. The President's concern is shared by the whole Kennedy family; one of its members, the President's sister Rosemary, suffered from cerebral palsy as a child. The Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., Memorial Foundation, set up by the President's parents in 1946, has made large grants for studies of congenital mental defects and means of dealing with them.
Parents of mentally deficient children no longer conceal their misfortune or accept it as beyond alleviation. Increasingly within the past decade the retarded child has been drawn out of “the shadows of shame and hopelessness” to be given a chance to develop such latent capacities as he may possess. Large sums from both public and private sources are now being spent to better the lot of the mentally retarded. New facilities are being built and new teaching methods developed. Scientists from many fields are joining in studies and experiments which hold promise of preventing some forms of congenital mental disability and of mitigating others.
President's Panel on Mental Retardation
In one of President Kennedy's earliest special messages (Feb. 9, 1961), the attention of Congress was directed to the plight of hundreds of thousands of American children born each year with crippling defects. The message asked legislation to establish, within the U.S. Public Health Service, a National Institute for Child Health and Human Development which would serve as a center for research on the full span of the life process. Light would thus be thrown on the origins of birth defects which cripple their victims both physically and mentally. Lack of action at the 1961 session of Congress led the President to repeat his recommendation in a special message, Feb. 27, 1962, on the genera] problem of health care for the old and the young. |
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Jan. 27, 2023 |
Deaths of Despair |
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Sep. 23, 2022 |
Public Schools' Challenges |
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Aug. 12, 2022 |
Parents' Rights |
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Apr. 01, 2022 |
Online Learning |
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Jan. 21, 2022 |
Teaching About Racism |
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Oct. 01, 2021 |
COVID-19 and Children |
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Jun. 11, 2021 |
Special Education |
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Jun. 21, 2019 |
Title IX and Campus Sexual Assault |
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May 17, 2019 |
School Safety |
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Feb. 02, 2018 |
Bullying and Cyberbullying |
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Feb. 03, 2017 |
Civic Education |
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Sep. 05, 2014 |
Race and Education |
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Jun. 13, 2014 |
Dropout Rate |
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May 09, 2014 |
School Discipline |
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Mar. 07, 2014 |
Home Schooling |
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Dec. 02, 2011 |
Digital Education |
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Nov. 15, 2011 |
Expanding Higher Education |
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Dec. 10, 2010 |
Preventing Bullying  |
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Apr. 16, 2010 |
Revising No Child Left Behind |
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Mar. 26, 2010 |
Teen Pregnancy |
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Sep. 04, 2009 |
Financial Literacy |
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Jun. 05, 2009 |
Student Rights |
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Feb. 22, 2008 |
Reading Crisis? |
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Jul. 13, 2007 |
Students Under Stress |
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Apr. 27, 2007 |
Fixing Urban Schools  |
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Nov. 10, 2006 |
Video Games  |
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Mar. 03, 2006 |
AP and IB Programs |
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Oct. 07, 2005 |
Academic Freedom |
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Aug. 26, 2005 |
Evaluating Head Start |
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May 27, 2005 |
No Child Left Behind |
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Jan. 17, 2003 |
Home Schooling Debate |
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Sep. 06, 2002 |
Teaching Math and Science |
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Jun. 07, 2002 |
Grade Inflation |
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Dec. 07, 2001 |
Distance Learning |
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Apr. 20, 2001 |
Testing in Schools |
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May 14, 1999 |
National Education Standards |
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Apr. 10, 1998 |
Liberal Arts Education |
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Jul. 26, 1996 |
Attack on Public Schools |
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May 17, 1996 |
Year-Round Schools |
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Oct. 20, 1995 |
Networking the Classroom |
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Sep. 22, 1995 |
High School Sports |
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Jan. 20, 1995 |
Parents and Schools |
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Sep. 09, 1994 |
Home Schooling |
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Mar. 25, 1994 |
Private Management of Public Schools |
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Mar. 11, 1994 |
Education Standards |
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Apr. 09, 1993 |
Head Start |
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Nov. 30, 1990 |
Conflict Over Multicultural Education |
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Feb. 05, 1988 |
Preschool: Too Much Too Soon? |
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Oct. 23, 1987 |
Education Reform |
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Aug. 24, 1984 |
Status of the Schools |
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Sep. 10, 1982 |
Schoolbook Controversies |
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Sep. 03, 1982 |
Post-Sputnik Education |
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Aug. 18, 1978 |
Competency Tests |
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Jan. 26, 1972 |
Public School Financing |
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Nov. 03, 1971 |
Education for Jobs |
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Apr. 15, 1970 |
Reform of Public Schools |
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Aug. 27, 1969 |
Discipline in Public Schools |
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Dec. 27, 1968 |
Community Control of Public Schools |
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Jun. 14, 1965 |
Summer School Innovations |
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Oct. 28, 1964 |
Education of Slum Children |
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Jun. 05, 1963 |
Year-Round School |
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Mar. 28, 1962 |
Mentally Retarded Children |
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Dec. 17, 1958 |
Educational Testing |
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Sep. 25, 1957 |
Liberal Education |
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Jul. 11, 1956 |
Educational Exchange |
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Feb. 02, 1955 |
Federal Aid for School Construction |
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Mar. 07, 1951 |
Education in an Extended Emergency |
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Nov. 20, 1945 |
Postwar Public Education |
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Nov. 07, 1941 |
Standards of Education |
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