I read with interest your article on why more men do not teach in city schools ("Missing: Male Teachers," June 11). Having both teacher and substitute-teacher friends, I can think of more concrete reasons than the ones you mentioned.

The primary reason is a lack of student discipline. I have heard stories of male teacher friends being physically assaulted and accused of unprofessional conduct for the most politically correct reasons imaginable. The mistreatment of teachers also has to do with administrators' unwillingness to challenge students, especially if a charge of racial or religious prejudice might follow.

A teacher friend was ordered by an administrator to go into a bathroom and move some boys back into the hallway. My friend refused. He knew that those students might report that the teacher had been involved in unprofessional conduct in the seclusion of the bathroom. My friend risked losing work in that particular school by not going into the bathroom rather than risk his entire career. That is the atmosphere of fear on the part of professionals in the field: fear of student accusations and fear of an administration that will not back teachers.

What are needed are stronger administrators who hold all students to the same expectations of conduct, regardless of whether the students are considered part of an "oppressed" racial or religious minority. We live in a society where many students receive no discipline at home, or are encouraged by their parents to see education only as a necessary evil. It is unfair, and insane, to expect teachers to turn disruptive children into model students with very few tools on their side. The male teachers who live in fear of accusation by students are only the first to suffer. The disruptive students cost the larger body of students the opportunity to learn.

FRANK STAMM, ROCHESTER