Religious schools discriminating against atheists

[MNersanonymous]

Dh and I are just having a discussion about this. The best state schools in our area are all religious and we, as atheists, feel discriminated against.

Could we take action against our local council under the religious discrimination legislation?!

Just curious really.

Damn! I'll have to put the rubber gloves away now

yes Mrsruffalo, there ARE Muslim schools which prioritise children who are Muslim over Christians and atheists (though can't imagine they are queuing up!) and this is just as wrong as C of E schools IMO. And, btw, I wonder how many people would be extolling the praises of faith schools if the only faith school in their LEA or nearest was a Muslim or Jewish school.

I also find your distinction between faith schools and state schools weird too. Faith schools ARE state schools. They are funded by taxpayers. My taxes go towards schoold my kids can't attend. This is just as wrong as if my kids were denied access to health services or public transport because they are being brought up without a faith.

Also, btw, I and I'm sure most people don't have a problem with children being taught about faith and about a range of faiths and being taught about right and wrong etc. This IS education after all. Indoctrination is not and has no place in our schools.

hurrah for fivecandles, which is lucky because i've lost the will to live and am... off to have my hair cut! for the firs time in about 3 years! I'm going short!

you see, atheists can never stick at anything.

You're having your hair cut now?

I think short will be marvellous on you darling

do you? really? I've got about ten seconds to decide one way or the other.. so post back immediately. I was thinking short but feminine as my slogan.
have vidal sasson stylist who does home cuts on the side, just up the road, 25 quid. Hooray!

MrsR I am in E17 where are you?

Deffo yes (hope this is within notional ten-second limit)

Very of VS cheap stylist.

gotcha. will report back in tears or delight.

By the way, you know what I said about ds not having a sibling. that has all changed, as of tonight

Congrats Oblomov!

Wow, congratulations oblomov!!!!
When, where, how?

hey, congratulations Oblamov!

fanfuckingtastic! How fabulous! and what a very odd coincidence that you should have been going on and on and bloody on about only-childness

Real congratulations, oblamov!

Congratulations, Oblomov that's fab news

Woohoo! way to go Oblomov

Congrats, Oblomov!
Now, to return to the sheep, as the French would say (and what a lovely appropriate phrase for discussing faith schools) - it's not so much the selection process that particularly worries me, it's those places where the only option is a faith school. Because faith schools are not invariably good and sometimes the problems a child might have at a faith school are because the school is based on a superstitious ethos. Whether it's a bright child who is endlessly curious and questioning, who becomes disenchanted with the crap being peddled as fact (and being told to shut up or punished in some way for questioning the crap) who therefore becomes disenchanted with education as a whole, or the child who thinks he or she might not be heterosexual and gets actively discriminated against - and what about the children of gay parents? Given the amount of fuss superstitious organisations have been making about keeping their right to discriminate?
THere's also a rather more wide-ranging issue which is that a school widely percieved as good might not suit your child anyway - if what you mean by 'good' is the kids are taught subservience, conformity and how to pass exams by means of public humiliation and intimidation then I wouldn't call that a good school myself.

Congratulations, Oblomov!!!

I am fretting about OBM's hair...

Have we had the one about how the church originally stole all the land from the working serfs a thousand years ago? Someone wake me up when that comes around.

Obviously we should close all faith schools, along with grammar schools, because they're good. Why does nobody ever try and distill the things that work in grammar and faith schools and try and bring them into the mainstream?

As a taxpayer, I want a good (academic) education for my children. I also want them to be educated in an institution with similar values to myself (or indoctrinated as some of you believe). I feel strongly on those values and am concerned that children in some non-religious schools would be educated / indoctrinated in different values or exposed to certain topics which are not put into a moral context.

If faith schools were not allowed within the State sector, I would also have to suggest that schools did not try to indoctrinate my children with values that I do not believe in and stick to the 3Rs.

I am not a 'believer' (but my husband is). But I value that my children are educated in a moral context (even if I disagree with some of the specifics). I know that when they are older they can make up their own minds, but whilst they are younger I want to protect them from being bombarded and confused with conflicting values.

Perhaps the way forward would be for the state sector to be non-religious, but parents who want to add the religious dimension should pay for it (ideally with the money that the state sector would have paid) being paid to the religious school. I believe this is the system in Australia.

I am a mostly-believing Catholic. I am also a former Mensa member (left after one meeting because I found the people strange) and have a degree from Oxford. I can't see much in my background that classes me as a 'sheep'.

Well all us private school paying parents pay towards the state system too as do the childless.

There is a case to be made for no state funded religious schools at all and even for abolishing state education and giving people vouchers dependent on income too.

All these people saying 'but why would an atheist want to send their child to a church school anyway?' are missing the point hugely.

It's a bit like someone saying 'but why would a black person want to sit in the white part of the bus anyway? They're not white!'.

You've got state-funded schools with a big 'for Christians' sign outside (effectively), and a corresponding admissions policy - atheists are not saying "please can our kids go to a Christian school", they're saying "please take down the 'for Christians' sign and make this into a school for anyone". Or take the state-funding from it and use that money to fund a school that will be for anyone regardless of religion.

Similarly the point of not having segregation on buses was not to allow black people to sit in the 'white' part of the bus it was to stop that part of the bus being the 'white' part at all and to make all parts of the bus for anyone.

State-funded schools should not be able to be called 'church' schools and discriminate amongst pupils based on their parents' religion. Being educated in a religion is not a fundamental educational need for a child just because their parent believes in a god (or even if the child believe in a god too) - it's just not something the state should be funding.

Threepointonefour: that's exactly how I feel about it - explained much more clearly than I managed