Poll: Schools Need To Have More Discipline

Americans think a lack of discipline is the biggest problem in the public schools, and they blame it on poor parenting, family breakdown and drugs, according to a new poll.

The survey carries a sobering message for teachers in the nation’s 120,000 public schools, said Lowell Rose, director of the Bloomingtonbased professional teaching fraternity Phi Delta Kappa. The group sponsored the poll taken by Gallup.

“You may not perceive your school as a place of violence but the public does and you’ve got to deal with that,” he said Thursday.

Like previous polls, it found a low public opinion of the nation’s educational system, but parents giving high marks to the schools their own children attend.

Kathleen Lyons, a spokeswoman for the National Education Association, said many of the union’s 2.2 million members do perceive their schools as unsafe, though the danger is somewhat overstated.