LIBERAL Democrat councillor Brian Dash (Letters, August 8) does not want to see new powers brought in for head teachers to restore order in the classroom and impose proper codes of discipline in their own schools, as proposed by David Cameron.
Instead, he wishes to see the continuation of a bureaucratic appeals process against exclusions, with decisions ultimately taken by outsiders.
But as Mr Cameron points out, imagine what it does to the standing of the head in the eyes of the students to see a pupil expelled for bad behaviour swaggering back in. This sends completely the wrong message about the relative power of the school and the student.
Local education authorities should be there to serve the school, not the other way round.
Complacent local politicians like Cllr Dash need to wake up - and quickly - to what is happening in too many schools, especially in our inner cities. Decisions about school discipline need to be taken in the schools themselves.
MRS B THORNE, Hythe.
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