Letter: Snob schools

Sir: David Aaronovitch delves into the darker side of human nature when he writes about the unseemly scrambling by parents for places at the "best" state school for their children (Comment, 26 January).

His suggested solution is that all schools should be made better. Then it would not matter which school little precious attended.

Rather a naive conclusion, which ignores the root cause of the problem: private schools, which beckon invitingly as alternative safe havens, segregating children from "undesirable influences" and pandering to the snobbery still endemic in Britain.

It is not the "playing fields of Eton" parents should be chasing - rather a level playing field for all.

MADELEINE HEANEY

Northampton