Letter: Many reasons for lack of discipline in classroom

Monday, July 25, 2005 | 9:28 a.m.

Reasons for the recent low National Assessment of Educational Progress reading and math tests results at the secondary level point to the lack of discipline. The American teacher has been stripped of any real disciplinary authority in the classroom.

Who is responsible for the fact that teachers are unable to establish authority or maintain effective discipline that once was important in school? Are teachers themselves responsible? Are teacher unions culpable?

Could it be that school systems led by weak school boards and advised by lawsuit-wary attorneys are unwilling to support teacher-imposed rules of classroom discipline? Maybe it is cadres of administrators more interested in increased personal status and salaries, and promoted by "good ole boy" systems, that have perpetrated this folly on American education.

It might be that real responsibility belongs to parents who lack effective child-rearing skills. Such parents are more willing to challenge a teacher's discipline policy in defense of their child's poor behavior than to support a strong disciplinary system. The easy out for parents is to shift blame and identify the student as a victim of a teacher who is a hard-nosed, unbending ogre of discipline.

It is likely a blend of the above, plus other societal factors, that have created a system where teachers, once respected as authority figures in school, have been relegated to the status of lowly clerks. Today, teachers have little authority and can only follow policy manuals and regulations devised by those with few years of experience or little mastery of leadership and teaching skills.

VIRGIL A. SESTINI

Editor's note: The writer is retired from the Clark County School District, where he taught science for 30 years.

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