Peanuts is `nuts

From the archive, first published Thursday 2nd Feb 2006.

While welcoming any additional real terms funding which comes into our county's schools, I must point out to parents while a 6.7% increase looks good on paper, in reality, how good it is depends on the original amount of funding it was applied to in the first place.

If we have had a 50% increase since 1997, as Jacqui Smith MP claims, and are still managing to rank bottom 8th out of 150 LEA's in the country, it just goes to show how appalling our funding situation is. 50% (or 6.7%) of peanuts, is still peanuts, after all.

Any increase Ms Smith claims we have had, is somewhat spectacularly eradicated, by the stark relegation of each child in Worcestershire, against the equivalent national average payment (83% relegation), the Birmingham payment (121% relegation) and the Herefordshire payment (92% relegation) since 1998-99 alone.

HELEN DONOVAN, St Margarets Road, Evesham.

Archive Home