Readers on Each Side Respond to Residential Treatment Story

Thank you so much for your article on teen therapy. Thanks to counseling, this student will make it. But I believe the father needs therapy too. While thousands of teachers across the state maintain high standards of discipline in the classroom, even with the highest class size in the nation, Mr. Vanni alleges that at San Clemente High, a lack of classroom discipline led to his daughter “going out with the wrong crowd, defiance,” etc.

By failing to realize that teachers are not responsible for what children do outside of school, Cara’s father is still in denial. He states that teens “run roughshod” over teachers. But while working 70 hours a week, I wonder when he observed at the public school alongside his daughter? How many open houses and back-to-school nights did he attend? When did he offer to turn off the TV and help his daughter with homework? Or take his child camping and talk about politics, sex, religion and values? Education begins in the home, and parenting is job one!

Mike Vanni contends that the state has placed “too many restrictions on teachers, resulting in unmotivated, uneducated students.” What a paradox that many parents elect to send their child to a private school because the state has not restricted teachers enough with respect to curricula.

Finally, he suggests that discipline is best accomplished through corporal punishment! Thank heavens for parents who exercise alternative, more effective systems of discipline!

By just changing to a private school, making unsubstantiated generalizations and pointing fingers, he is typical of the education problem, not the solution.

Bob Bath, Mission Viejo