LETTER: No flag-waving in Massachusetts

From Mr John Davies

Sir: David Usborne ("United behind the flag - if little else", 8 February) ought to know better than to make generalisations about American education. My daughter spent three years at school in the US in the early Nineties and never once began her day "reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag".

Admittedly, this was in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, a state not typical of the American heartland; but in a country where every city and town has much more control over its education system than is the case in Britain, local variations from the norm are to be expected.

Yours sincerely,

John Davies

London, E4