Figures showing a record number of incidents in Western NSW public schools involving violence, weapons and illegal drugs, on the surface, don't inspire confidence in our local learning institutions.

For anyone who hasn't set foot inside a classroom in the past 30 years or so, much of what goes on would come as a shock.

Gone are the days of silent children sitting in neat rows where a teacher's raised voice orthe threat of being sent to the principal's office was more than enough to deter bad behaviour.

And if the spectre of the cane didn't have you shaking in your shoes, certain punishment by mum or dad when you got home most certainly did.

Times have changed. Nowadays, swearing and defiance are not uncommon in some classrooms, while even within school grounds drug use and phenomena such as sexting, the latter unheard of a decade ago, are an unfortunate reality that can potentially ruin lives.

If would-be teachers are being turned off the profession, perhaps the profession has become less about teaching and increasingly about managing behaviour and a host of social issues cultivated in homes then brought into the classroom.

Many of the incidents detailed in the report required police or paramedic response, tying up emergency services.

A particularly disturbing aspect of the report was the violence instigated by parents.

Because we can hardly expect the behaviour of some students to be exemplary when their mums and dads are, as evidenced in the report, threatening to smash windows, teachers and other parents.