The failure of Knowledge is Power Program (Kipp) charter schools in the US has been in the news for some time. But co-founder Dave Levin still locks himself into irrelevant targets such as students being “college ready” (“When getting bad results is ‘great’”, 25 October).

UK primary children are now expected to be “secondary ready”. Schools inspectorate for England Ofsted is even talking about nursery children being “primary ready”. Only one criterion for readiness exists in such a mentality - passing tests whose very validity and reliability must be seriously questioned.

But significant research findings have shown convincingly that educational success correlates better with human factors - relationships, self-belief, respect and a sense of achievement in more than just tests. We continue to fail generations of children because we refuse to work with such truths. Whatever happened to original educational concepts such as “life ready”?

Mervyn Benford, Shutford, Oxfordshire.