Letter: Labour fanfares

Sir: Your headline "Blair targets bad teachers and doctors" (29 September) shows that yet another government is missing the point about raising educational standards. The real drain on educational resources is bad parents.

Bad parents fail to instil discipline into their children and the resulting disruption to classrooms wastes up to three-quarters of teaching time in some lessons. Targeting "bad" teachers sends a further message to bad parents that responsibility for their children's behaviour is not theirs. I suggest that a campaign for parent awareness will be money far better spent.

Incidentally, amid the Labour fanfare of "Bla bla, more money for education election pledge, bla bla", the school where my wife teaches changed from grant-maintained to a new arrangement whose shiny, catchy New Labour tag slips my mind; of course the administrators couldn't resist the temptation to use this to slash pounds 250,000 from the school's annual budget.

I notice with distress that I sound like a Daily Mail reader. I apologise.

ANDREW FORBES

Horsham, West Sussex