Auriol Stevens is not biased (Letters, September 18); she is well-informed and persuaded by the facts. She may also be a tad angry at the smug, ill-informed complacency of some private school apologists.

Most private schools harm state education because they are divisive and reinforce this by competing academically with the community’s non-selective schools, creaming-off the most able.

They commodify education, by charging fees averaging #163;11,250, a per capita spend more than twice that of state schools. The combined effect of this exclusiveness is to reinforce the inequality that bedevils our society.

Tony Mitchell, Bedford.