Apart from that, I totally agree with you: you’re completely entitled to your own WRONG opinion.

Religionism strictly for the private sphere alone.

http://www.liberalconspiracy.org/2008/06/16/swedish-lesson/

Great – then can we make sure that they survive please.

First off, the idea that ‘faith’ schools perform better is extremely questionable given that there’s a substantial body of evidence which shows that the latitude given to these schools in terms of their being able to use ‘faith’ as a basis for allocating school places is commonly parleyed into a form of selection on the basis of social class.

I’ll need to dig around for it, but there’s at least one solid study which demonstrates that if you control for ‘selection’ by social class, using the proportion of pupils on free school meals as an indicator of poverty, then the supposed edge that ‘faith’ schools have in terms of performance rapidly evaporates.

That said, the central issue here isn’t that of whether ‘faith schools’ should survive but whether religious belief should be afforded a privileged status within the education system, not just in terms of state funding for ‘faith schools’ but also in terms of the legal requirement that non-faith community schools should be required to incorporate a ‘broadly Christian’ act of worship in their daily assemblies and deliver an RE curriculum devised by a statutory standing committee made up, in most cases, entirely of members of the priestly caste and an assortment of lay religionists. Let’s not forget that, only last year, a secondary school (which I think may have already been an Academy) requested that the the mandatory religious provision be waived in order that it could operate as a secular school on becoming one of the new Trust schools only to be told by a scutter at the DCSF that this was impossible because the government regards religion as being ‘embedded’ in the education system.

The fair and equitable way to resolve this issue is to move to a Swedish-style system of free schools, funded by vouchers, giving parents a much wider choice in regards to the kind of school they send their children to. ‘Faith schools’ would continue to exist where there is a clear demand amongst parents for such a school but, equally, those parents, like myself, who would prefer their children to be educated in a secular school would be able to come together to open a school that meets our needs and requirements.

Great – then can we make sure that they survive please.

Not in the slightest.

The issue at stake is that of the ‘act of creation’, the proposition that the universe has a finite beginning and definite starting point at which it could be said, either colloquially or in explicitly religious terms, to have been ‘created’.

If that premise falls – and there are a number of cosmological models which predict the rapid inflation of the universe associated with the Big Bang but without there being a Big Bang singularity – and the universe is shown to have had no defined starting point then the premise of the creator god ceases to have any significant meaning.

>>obviously already working.

That’s a matter of opinion.

Thanks Charlie but are you for or against faith schools?

A former headmaster said if 25% of class or a school are troublemakers one is not involved in education but riot control.

The left middle class civl servant who looks upon employment as a meal and mortgage ticket for life completely ignores the views of most of the hard working and honest parents. It does not matter whether the parents are poor or rich; religious or atheist , many do not want their chldren to educated alongside the ignorant , violent and devious who are are contemptuous of education and are happy to ruin the learning of their children. Until we reform our education system and create reform type schools with specially selected and trained staff to deal with the ignorant, violent and devious and a rigorous discipline system which includeds expelling the disruptive from comprehensives; then many parents will do one of 4 things
1 Move to affluent areas and better schools, 2 send their childrendren to religious schools ; 3 send their children to grammar schools, 4 send their children to public schools.

The first loyalty of a parent is to their child. The welfare state employs many excellent people, however there are many middle class failures who have created a system which does nothing to help the hard working and honest poor who only wish to improve their quality of life through their endeavours. This why there is Jewish school in Birmingham, which teaches Jewish religious customs whose majority of pupils are from Muslim families because they know they will receive a better education than that at the local comprehensives.

The idea of comprehensives is not wrong. What is wrong is the educational system created by left wing middle class humanities based civil servants and academics which has larely removed an effective discipline system and strived to create equality, based upon outcome not opportunity. Consequently,many of the worst schools are largely influenced by the ignorant , violent and disruptive pupils and parents and not the hardworking and honest. Too many poor schools are jungles where the strong and violent pupils prey on the weaker and more peaceful ,while a bunch of middle class left wing failures as teachers avert their gaze or even backdown from confronting the disruptive .

As someone mentioned in an earlier comment, parents will do anything to get the best schools. They’ll go private, they’ll move house. They’ll certainly send a child to a faith school when they themselves aren’t bothered. However, I don’t think they’ll react to the idea of funded children from poorer backgrounds by pulling their own kids out – we didn’t see that, for example.

Without prayer – it can’t really be called a faith school.

If everyone has to pray to Jesus – thats not ideal and Non Christian parents would only be ok with that if there was no other school around.

If they are split up for prayer – then why call it a Catholic school – it should be the “Multifaith School”?

>>they will simply allow more and more of them in the school leading to lower standards,

Do you mean lower results? Which standards change due to the presence of poor people?

>>while the richer kids get taken out of the school as their parents worry about the bad influence.

Yes. Can’t have a set number of poorer children provided for by grants, the answer must be to *take my child out of that school*. Er… I’m not sure that would happen to the extent you’re suggesting.

You can do all of this without religion. The Catholic school I went to in Sussex had children from a wide range of backgrounds (including a large group of Somalis who were provided for by dedicated funding) and the parents didn’t seem too upset. The school’s results may drop on average if you bring in a group who have to work harder, but it never affected other students.

Also, Nick Clegg’s idea is ludicrous if you look where it will lead. If schools get “a good incentive (extra money) to actively seek out poor and deprived children to admit to their schools” they will simply allow more and more of them in the school leading to lower standards, while the richer kids get taken out of the school as their parents worry about the bad influence. How can you not see that happening?

Finally, why are you so discriminating against parents doing whatever is necessary to give their children the best education possible? Surely if every parent in England was doing that we wouldn’t have half the problems we do. I say lets have even more parents involved and fiddling the system, the more parents pushing for better schools the more noise they make about falling standards – the quicker the powers that be will respond.

PS Steve B – There are covens all over the world who can communicate via the net, set up a bank account and a Charitable Trust and start donating and supporting projects of their choice – you don’t need a media campaign, to start a charity. They’re not doing a recruitment drive, they are raising funds for helping their community. I’m still not understanding – sorry.

What fucking nonsense. Who cooks up these ideas? Has he bothered to canvas the views of parents or teachers about this?

Our schools are a national and international disgrace and all the Runnymead trust seems concerned about is the minority of schools that make a half-hearted effort to teach christianity as the received religion. Its just another brainless think tank with absolutely nothing to say

The idea that “children are given a greater say in how the school is run” sounds like typical, impractical 60s socialist idealism. I hope they are being facetious and actually mean something like student forums.

RE was part of the curriculum in the 70s/80s in the secular schools I attended, but was widely ridiculed by the pupils because we came from fairly secular backgrounds. This is undoubtedly different now, due to mass immigration, which is why “faith” is now such an issue in education.
“Why does’nt the Runnymede raise money and set up it’s own schools? Bearing in mind how bad some state schools are , I am sure parents in deprived areas would love to send their chidren to a Runnymede Trust School. Surely there should be a wide variation in the types of school so that parents have choices?”
I agree.

I wonder what range of people was used to compile the report. Do they ever get the opinions of low achievers or are they all middle-class, university educated and reliant on the State for employment?

They are many factors affecting achievement at school, you cannot just focus on one area and then just set targets or enforce change. The location, the local population, immigration, the background of the parents, the aspirations of the parents, peer pressure, discipline, the quality of teaching, the existence of mentoring, career advice, etc, are all influencing factors. As someone who wasted their education and left school with very little, but discovered learning later in life, I now appreciate those influences.

The key to solving our education inequality is improving the low achieving schools. The new Academies are helping, but a new, pretentious building and a token specialisation will not solve the inherent problems. Govt can help by ensuring teaching quality. However the Govt’s main approach (other than denial and lying) is target setting which has been a failure and just lowers standards. If a school is judged on the number of exclusions it makes, the disruptive pupils just ruin it for everyone else.

The ruling class realise education is failing for a significant portion of the lower social strata. However, there is a reluctance to seek out the root problems and make changes because a) it exposes the failure of their own policies, b) the patterns in education choice show a marked determination by many parents not to participate in the mass immigration and multi-cultural experiments of this Government and some of their predecessors, and c) the solutions may compromise the superior education of their own offspring.

Perhaps the answer is to work with Selection not against it .. and allow a greater variety of schools ?

You are right obviously but that doesnot mean that faith school might not be a better environment for some . Catholic Schools in Scotland do very well in extremely deprived areas because of their rigidly structured methods (arguably).

Imagine a school which is 1% better than all the others nearby. Just 1%. The people who want the best for their kids and who have the resources to get it will game whatever selection system there is – be that geographical or religious – to get their kids in. Let’s say that because richer kids are less likely to be disruptive, more likely to be intelligent and motivated, that the first intake of rich kids raises standards by another 1%. Well, now the school has better children than the others, so when it’s recruiting teachers it can offer an easier lifestyle for applicants, thus get better applicants, thus get better teachers. Now it’s 5% better than the surrounding schools. So more middle-class people think “actually, now it is worth the stretch to move closer / send the kids to Sunday school” so the school gets 10% better. Any sort of selection criteria at all is going to lead to exactly this circumstance. Faith is just the method by which the rich play the system to get their kids in, and of course since the faith schools themselves benefit very well from this, they are quite content to keep quiet…

The secular law states that. Many religions have laws saying the exact opposite.

I will say that I’ve found Judaism (in the UK) to be pretty much the most tolerant. They encourage questioning and interpretation, and discussion of the texts. This immediately puts your experience in a much more liberal place than many faiths that could contribute to a ‘faith school’. Teaching all religions and encouraging respect for all of them would be fine, but it’s vanishingly rare in the UK as a whole.

>>people will not even bat an eye at a Neopagan charity

Oh, really? You think Wicca would get a big national response, without any talk at all from evangelical christians (and I suspect also some mainstream sects) about giving money to the Witches? If you don’t think there’d be newspaper headlines, you might not have seen the 80′s and 90′s with the “ritual abuse scandal” based on absolutely nothing. I don’t expect it to improve, there’s a lot of very normal reasons why wide acceptance is unlikely to ever happen, but please – don’t think that the public as a whole are as enlightened or tolerant as you. They’re definitely not.

>>As long as Scientologists don’t kill or harm anybody else then I must respect their wish to educate their children in the school of their choice – otherwise I can’t have the freedom to educate my child how I wish to.

But that’s precisely what I’m saying. We need to determine whether teaching their ideas and potentially displaying a bias to other ideas in education constitutes “harm”. We can all educate our children in our own faith – outside of a classroom. It doesn’t belong in a school. I went to a catholic secondary school, I don’t have a problem with using the ethos as something to bring the children together and promote standards and school spirit, but this issue goes far beyond that.

I believe (a personal opinion) that Scientology would harm children. It uses brainwashing techniques on adults, and wouldn’t even need them on 7 year-olds. I have problems with the issue of deliberate selection, of the wealth issues, and of pushing religion that strongly onto children.