SIR - I think you could not have produced a more misleading headline than "Private schools are run for the public good" over some special pleading by the head teachers of our local private schools as they try to derail a threat by the Charities Commission to end their £100 million subsidy.

Their plan seems to be to persuade the authorities that they will be meeting the new public interest criterion for tax relief by offering a few more bursaries to disadvantaged families.

The offer of ten or 20 additional free places per school, is however, laughably inadequate when set against the huge imbalance between the ten million children in state schools and the 500,000 receiving a private education.

I would have thought that at least 50 per cent of their output would have to be devoted to free education before even being considered a possible "public good".

Given that this is unlikely, private schools can never otherwise justify their entitlement to a taxpayer-funded subsidy of £200-per-pupil. This money would in any case be much better spent within the public sector rather than helping to educate the children of the better-off.

B Holmans, Langley Road, Bingley