WEEKEND COLUMNISTS Reader feedback: always welcome, never dull. Columnists may moan occasionally about the size of their postbag, but the truth is we like it really. It reminds us that someone out there is reading our views on life, however trivial they are, and bothering to respond. A reader recently told me that “I may not always agree with your columns”, but went on to praise our decision to remove our two younger children, Cost Centres #2 and #3 (or rather, Reduced Cost Centres), from their heinously expensive private schools and send them to local ones. This reader, who sends her own CC to a large, local state primary school, said: “We have never regretted her going there for one moment. She has a lot of fun and, in terms of academic achievement, she and her schoolmates are more than holding their own against their more expensively educated out-of-school friends. They also have the advantage of a full social life on their doorstep!”
Such encouragement was typical of almost every e-mail I received. Sure, I had a couple of more cynical correspondents, and even one from a regular reader of Significance, a quarterly journal published under the supervision of the Royal Statistical Society. The aim of Significance, apparently, is “to communicate and demonstrate in an entertaining and thought-provoking way the practical use of statistics”. Golly.
In the June 2009 issue, there was a paper entitled “What have private schools done for (some of) us?”, written by Professor Francis Green and three other worthy individuals. In this, they estimate that, for a data set of 10,000 people, if all other factors are equal (such as family background), students who attend private school will earn more than 20 per cent more over their lifetime than their state-educated peers. So, I could be about to reduce the Cost Centres’ ability to become Profit Centres!
Apart from those e-mails, and another correcting my Latin (always good to know that Latin scholars are reading FT Weekend), the remainder have been very encouraging. “Welcome to the real world” has been the theme. “The three CC’s will survive and prosper – children are so resilient,” one reader said. Another particularly cheering e-mail came from a reader in his early twenties who had been through a very similar experience, from the child’s perspective. He said it had been a difficult adjustment at first, but it had worked out well in the end and he had been fine.
I had expected a big postbag from our school decision. What I had not expected was the tsunami of correspondence over my comments about South African rugby and the apparent lack of black representation in the national team. “Surely that is a matter for the coaches, rugby players and the selection committee of South Africa to decide, and to respond to the question [of] whether it is more important to have a politically correct approach to selection based on ethnic quotas, or a team selected from the best available players, one that can train together, work together, and function and operate to win in future international contests.” This represented the considered and thoughtful end of the spectrum. The other end can be summed up by the reader who didn’t even write in the body of the e-mail, but said in the subject line: “Get over it and quit your ridiculous liberal ideology.”
Fortunately, a few of you also wrote in to explain the rules of rugby, including a German reader who said the sport had been explained to him by some Australian friends. But the greatest number of e-mails came from people who realised that I had not checked one important fact. I hereby apologise, and acknowledge that the 20th anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s release from prison is not until February. Thank you, readers, for that feedback. It is always welcome.
