Sir - Martin Thomas (Letters, May 9) is wrong in attempting to establish a connection between the increasingly distant city reorganisation and the movement of Peers and Oxford Community Schools to Academy and Foundation status respectively.

A mixed economy of 'types' of maintained schools is emerging in Oxfordshire, not just the city, in which schools seek to find the best means of serving their communities and, particularly, the young people they are there to support.

Martin Thomas will always argue that reorganisation of city schools from a three- to a two-tier system was a mistake. The majority view remains, however, that removing the anachronism of a three-tier system within a two-tier local authority and country, was in the best interests of all concerned.

In previous exchanges with Martin Thomas, through your letters page, we have exchanged data about the performance of city schools. If his letter was the last on the subject of reorganisation (as he says) let this be our last data offering.

Individual school examination performance, inevitably, oscillates to an extent. More telling are county averages. In the period 2005-2007, the proportion of pupils achieving 5+ A*-C grades at GCSE (including English and mathematics ) in the rest of the county increased by three percentage points, the same as in the city over the same period. The actual percentage increase in the rest of the county was seven per cent as compared with nine per cent in the city. The city reorganisation should be a source of celebration, not regret.

John Mitchell, Assistant to the director for Children Young People and Families