Perhaps if the main phantoms of single parenthood were not invoked so carelessly there might

Perhaps if the main phantoms of “single parenthood” were not invoked so carelessly, there might be more recognition that there are many independent parents working together at bringing up their children. WHILE welcoming discussion of independent parenthood (“Fighting for their affection”, Sunday Review, 29 January), I was disappointed that the populist shaman of the “non-resident” male was the chosen example throughout. As you pointed out, reading recovery will be cheaper in the long run, but can education authorities afford to take a long-term view? It is very sad to see children’s futures put at risk in this way.
Angela Hobsbaum Institute of Education London WC1. Given the likely cuts in education budgets this year, we know that local education authorities will have some difficult choices to make. And it will certainly not be much use in enabling other local education authorities to trythe programme out for themselves.

If Mr Peters had made it clear that his comments were intended for the adult world of innovation in business and commerce, then he may have had a valid point. But somewhere along the way, someone (whether it is the learner or someone else close by) has to make sense of the “muddle”, and take hard-headed decisions about which bits are worth keeping.
As usual, Mr Peters’ article was thought-provoking, but I question whether the series has anything to do with “excellence”.D Hodgson Alloa, Scotland. THANK you for mentioning the reading recovery scheme in your leader, “Give schools time to think” (29 January). It was a helpful reminder to the public that this excellent initiative is now jeopardised by the lack of earmarked funding. We are not yet clear how much money will come to the programme from the Single Regeneration Grant but we suspect that it will not be as much as we received before. Such theories were tried in the world of education and are now widely discredited because the children did not acquire the basic building blocks from which the more creative aspects of learning can then develop.

Applied to the world of education, this would mean that children should not be corrected when they make spelling mistakes, norhelped to learn arithmetic, let alone taught the difference between right and wrong. At one point, “teachers” (admittedly in quotes) were advised to resist the temptation to intervene when the learner needs help. But the point is that every 50 years they had to do it all over again.Dafydd ap Thomas Cardiff. TOM Peters’ advocacy of “muddle” as the route to learning must have struck a huge discord with many teachers and parents (“Muddle makes the world go round”, Business, 29 January). 2) “Equitable distribution of wealth” is much too prolix Let us say instead the “Equal distribution of wealth”. “Equitable” merely means “Fair” and while Sir Cedric Brown of British Gas is absolutely certain that three quarters of a million is fair, 5 million unemployed workers are equally sure that it is unfair – the question is who decides the fair rate, Sir Cedric or the voters?
In the Seventies, when there was much talk of equality, Tory MPs would scoff, saying that if the wealth was fairly divided then in only a few short years it would be back in the same hands.