If they are, the selection process has failed

My younger son has to cover more subjects to a much higher level. The number of students doing four-unit maths in year 12 grows every year. Most will never need this level of maths to do medicine, law or other subjects that require a 99-plus ranking. Nor, sadly, will they become the maths teachers we need. Where will it stop? Rosemary Embery Haberfield This is not what the schools were designed to do Once again the debate about selective schools is getting dragged off course. Selective public schools exist to provide an environment in which gifted and talented children may learn together. They were not, to my knowledge, set up so that children who worked hard to pass a particular test could learn together. Their purpose is to level the playing field for children whose parents cannot or will not pay for private schooling. The main (unstated) conclusion to be drawn from your story is that Asian students are over-represented because they have been trained to take the admission tests, and therefore outperform other students (''Top school's secret weapon: 95% of students of migrant heritage'', September 13). The issue is not, then, whether the parents of Asian students push their children too hard, or whether non-Asian students are being excluded. It is whether selective schools provide the social good they are designed to, given they do not select the truly gifted and talented (due to training for admission tests) or mitigate the disadvantage of students whose parents are not motivated to train their children for the tests. The ambitions of parents should not be the deciding factor for admission to selective schools. If they are, the selection process has failed. David Rowe Bondi Beach I have never said we should shrink our population (''How Sydney can get its groove back'', September 14). What I have said is we need a plan before we continue our world-leading population growth. Maxine McKew says Asians will laugh at us if we seek to manage the growth of our cities within environmental constraints. Then why are so many queuing up to Rosetta Stone come here? And why does the most respected measure of ''best cities'' - the Mercer guide - rank Sydney behind nine cities, all with a smaller population? She repeats the myth that New York City (ranked 40 places below Sydney) is an environmental paradise. Obviously she hasn't spent too much time in the sprawling boroughs beyond expensive Manhattan. Less than 1 per cent of the city's energy is produced by anything other than fossil fuels. Little wonder that it doesn't feature in the top 50 eco-city rankings. I agree with Ms McKew that we need smarter, better planned cities and less sloganeering - such as the ''shrink Australia crowd'' tag she dismisses me with. But I don't see how increasing our population at unsustainable rates will help us achieve any of that. Dick Smith Terrey Hills It looks as though Maxine McKew, having blown her chance at a second term, has started a new gig as a big business and developer lobbyist. Her failure to address any larger practical concern of creating a ''big Sydney'' is breathtaking. South-east Queensland, including Brisbane, is a world recognised disaster area of global drying, using water far faster than it can ever be replaced. New Yorkers individually average lower consumption, but the city's footprint is hugely destructive outside its boundaries. Manila, Shanghai and Jakarta are home to some of the most irresponsible and rapacious corporations on the planet. Co-operative planning based on something other than greedy self-interest would be a novelty in Sydney as well. I can't see it happening soon. Is Ms McKew moving into one of those massive, shiny, soulless new tenements lining the airport highways in one of these model cities sometime soon?

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