Letter: Monied classes

Sir: Amidst the current frenzied efforts to produce ideas which will improve the English educational system (leading article, 12 February), one fact is being ignored: the 7 per cent of the population who do not send their children to state schools happen to be the nation's rich and powerful.

Until they have a personal and direct interest in the quality of state schools, is it reasonable to expect much improvement? The point here is not to pursue the vindictive and self-defeating goal of "abolition" of private schools, but to harness the best of them to the state sector.

PETER RAINEY

Maidstone, Kent