Letter: Get out and fight for better education: that's the best thing you can do for your children

SO MUST we all weep for the poor old London middle classes who have to pay thousands a year for private education ("Can pay, will pay ...", 23 April)? I lived in London in the late Eighties and watched as the Inner London Education Authority - for all its faults, a generous funder that was significantly improving London's secondary schools - was abolished out of political spite. That's when the financial squeeze on London schools began. Where were the middle classes then? Certainly not marching for their schools as parents from the shire counties have been doing for these last few months.

This country needs all its children educated to their full potential if it is to survive in the world. This goal will not be achieved if the middle class opts out, either into private education or into the few remaining grammar schools.

The parents who have been raising hell recently about education cuts have in the main been supporting successful comprehensive schools. If the London middle classes have given up on state schools, may their fees go on rising. They will get no sympathy from the rest of us who are still in there fighting and, until this year's financial catastrophe, winning.

Mandy Clitheroe

Leamington Spa