State school monopoly

SIR – Ross Clark (Comment, October 3) suggests the message is clear for private schools: “Lower your fees... and you will experience a lot less animosity” (from bitter middle-class parents who are priced out).

Many independent schools already have fees significantly lower than those normally quoted in the media. I owned one such school until recently. Parents were on ordinary income levels, often helped by grandparents.

Schools like mine struggle to stay afloat. I didn’t take a salary in seven years. A simple solution is to stop the monopoly of education by the state.

Allow vouchers. Some students are already funded today by the local authority to attend private schools if they have an Education Health Care Plan. Parents are put in the perverse situation of trying to get labels on their children so that they can be funded to go to schools with smaller class sizes, while other parents have to pay out of their own pocket, and pay taxes too.

It is only fair that the average student funding should be carried to whatever school a parent chooses, whether public or private. Jane Reynolds

Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire