With reference to Dr Seldon's attack on parents who move house in order to find a better school for their children, I would suggest the real hypocrites are politicians (including the Prime Minister) and educationists who publicly advocate state education while sending their own children to fee-paying private schools.

In the course of my career as a secondary school teacher (from 1960 to 2000, mostly in state schools) I have met many ordinary parents who lived in areas where the local state school was less than satisfactory and who were prepared to make financial sacrifices, either by moving or paying for private education, in order to get the best for their children.

Parents who do this are certainly not hypocrites. Many such parents were desperately worried about their children having to go to schools with a record of low achievement, poor discipline and high levels of truancy and staff turnover. I would respectfully suggest the best approach to the problem in our schools is not means testing but to bring the independent schools into the state system and raise the necessary funding by higher levels of taxation for those on above-average earnings.

Would Dr Seldon be prepared to open the doors of Brighton College to children of parents living in East Brighton regardless of their financial means?

-Frederick Ellis, Hove