Letter: Parental choice may swamp good schools

Francis Roads
Wednesday 09 February 2005 01:02 GMT
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Sir: A Saturday editorial (5 February) repeats the half-truth that problems of school indiscipline and truancy can be met by more interesting and relevant teaching. The truth's other half is that firstly, pupils may lack the maturity to know what teaching is relevant to their needs, and secondly, there remains a hard core of pupils who want to disrupt lessons regardless of how carefully they are prepared.

Schools are meant to prepare pupils for their future life. In the adult world, misdemeanours are punished. Teachers would be glad to prepare pupils for this principle, but unfortunately the rights culture has removed virtually all effective disciplinary sanctions from their control.

FRANCIS ROADS

London E18

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in