MAY I thank you for publishing my letter about education a few weeks ago. Having followed some of the debate from afar (I am currently working in Ghana ), I feel compelled to reply to the two missives attacking me since the letter was published.

There was a recent letter suggesting that I was not interested in getting better funding for schools in Worcester. As a parent with two children in the education system in Worcester I can assure her that this is precisely what I am interested in and she can't have read my letter very carefully.

Second, there was a rather stinging attack from Mr Luff, which suggests that I got the figures badly wrong. Unfortunately, Mr Luff concentrates on this instead of the point of the letter, which was that statistics in many political missives are misleading.

In the case of education, I have no particular political axe to grind. I am just another concerned parent who grew up in another deprived area (Northumberland) and doesn't want his children to be deprived.

I don't argue with the statistics he provides, I just question why he didn't produce such clear information in the first place, prompting me to write.

The fact remains that both Left and Right in the debate should employ figures and explain what they mean, instead of being provoked into producing explanations.

The real debate here is why does the education formula discriminates so clearly against certain areas.

PAUL JACKSON,

University of Birmingham.