EIGHT days ago, we aired Government claims that Worcestershire County Council wasn't spending as much money on its schools as it could.

The Education Department said that £3 more per child was being spent on bureaucracy than the national average.

It was for others closer to the running of education to speculate about the timing of the release of the figures. And that remains the case.

But we said that one crucial point shouldn't become clouded. That was the fact that £69 less per pupil was available to the county, compared with the national average.

The Government's new funding formula, we added, needed to put that right.

Today, it's become apparent that this very formula could leave Worcestershire children even worse off.

We say "could" because, instead of publishing a single set of proposals, Local Government Minister Nick Raynsford has outlined a series of options for making the grant system "fairer and simpler".

Worcester MP Mike Foster says parents, teachers and politicians must now unite behind the one proposal among them which would bring a desperately-needed cash boost.

But Mid-Worcestershire MP Peter Luff thinks that to settle for something which is still below the national average would be "madness".

We don't often disagree with Mr Foster but, today, we do.

None of the parents, teachers and politicians he speaks about should accept children in their care being treated as second-class citizens, compared with pupils in places like Surrey or Kent. And he mustn't allow it to happen.