Solving the crisis in state education

[judetheobscure]

Thought I'd start a new thread as the state vs private thread is soooo long; and wanted to focus more on possible solutions.

So, fwiw, here are some ideas (aimed at secondary level):

Abolish private schools
Abolish "religious" schools
Abolish grammar schools, foundation schools, CTCs (are they still called this) and any other form of "specialist" school.

Create across-the-board comprehensive system.

Insist on setting. No mixed-ability classes for academic subjects. Allow plenty of opportunity to move "up" and "down" the sets.

Have units within the schools for problem pupils. Remove them from classes as soon as they become disruptive.

Problem pupils who don't improve and who don't have parents that support the school to be sent to boarding schools. (Not necessarily boarding schools for disruptive pupils but normal boarding schools.)

Restrict higher education to top 20%(ish).
Bring back apprenticeships. (Where's a plumber when you need one).
Money saved on universities can go to restoring student grant and better funding for schools.

Train more teachers and train them better. Don't allow teacher training institutions to spend 90% of the course on educational debates and "gender issues" etc. Classroom management and subject specific skills are far more important.

Anything I've missed (tongue-in-cheek)

Well...all 106 in our diocese for a start. We did enough research to establish that it was common practice before drafting our letter to the Head. But we didn't find another example of such a misleading brochure...the others made it clear that the contribution is voluntary. Also that, since they count as charities, they can claim tax rebates under the Gift Aid scheme on any contributions they receive from parents who are taxpayers.

Jimjams I see what you are saying. The admissions aren't discriminatory-- it's the oversubscription policy, but it doesn't matter because it doesn't get used. I've been pecking around, trying to find some good numbers and simply can't. It's easy to find out how many kids from Tagalog go to the local Islington schools, but rather more difficult to find out about VA and VC schools. The various LEAs websites I've seen generally treat VC and state schools as one and the same, but all I've read say that voluntary aided schools set their own admissions criteria, which, yes, could possibly mean that they accept local kids first but I'm guessing usually doesn't.

Some examples:
London Borough of Waltham Forest VA admissions criteria ,

The table of the end of this Tameside page is interesting , and more explained in this guide to completing the Tameside school application form, see the last bit of the page . Especially, when you look at the Tameside League Tables . Just a quick overview: there are 11 RC schools that have reached an agreement with the LEA over the top percentage of non-RC students in the school (7 of the schools at 0% -- even if the class is not filled). These 11 schoools have 8 in the top scores of the league tables and 5 in the top twenty. Of the seven schools who admit no non-RC children, 5 are in the top half and 3 are in the top 20. Tameside doesn't give information on admission to CofE VA schools. Those, also, do statistically better than the LEA schools.

Anyway, those are just examples, obviously, and I used them because they were the only ones I could find quickly.

Some other interesting stats from Ofsted's Review of Primary Schools 1994-1998 :
64% of primary schools were non-denominational, 25% C of E, 10% RC and 1% other (Chart Two )
62% were LEA maintained, 20% voluntary aided, 15% voluntary controlled and 3% grant maintained (Chart 3 )

I do understand that historically, the Church had a large part in providing schools and education for the people. It's just that now when people are looking at ways to improve education for everyone, it might be an idea to at least look at what exactly is going on in the church schools. Who is being funded, who is doing the funding and who is receiving the education.

Also, I don't really think abolishing the standardized tests would actually happen. How much funding is dependent on the results? My suggestion is to untie that funding, if there is any. Robinw, I know it's not all about funding, but, as my husband is fond of saying: money can be exchanged for goods and services.

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I find the idea of state-funded church schools absolutely OUTRAGEOUS. How dare an institution feel free to take my money but refuse to teach my child because I have a strong moral objection to religion and wouldn't dream of lying about it to get my child into a local school? How dare the local authority fund a local school so it can discriminate against my son . If he/I was black it would be illegal to refuse to educate him. IMO, if the church want to run schools and refuse to take non-churchgoers, they should b*dy well pay for them, and not pinch my heathen cash to do so.

Wow, so schools are being encouraged to switch from VC (voluntary controlled - with the LEA as the admissions authority) to VA (voluntary aided - with the Governing Body, effectively the Church, being in charge of admissions). The DfEE pays for 85% of new building work and 85% of maintenence while the staff are employed by the governing body and paid for by the LEA :
"In voluntary aided schools the teachers are employees of the governing body. The LEA provides the finance through the delegated budget and in most schools provides payroll services. It has been traditional in voluntary aided schools to refer to the division of responsibilities between governors and LEA as that between employer and paymaster." (the quote was from the above link which is part of the website Robinw mentioned and the previous numbers were from the link she gave in her post below).

The school you mentioned has 50 places for non-religious children and 70 places saved for religious. So, while you're correct in saying that relative to other VA schools, it's a good admissions policy, if you look at in the light that the vast majority of the school's expenses are paid by taxpayer money, it's a sham.

Fully 20% of schools are VA. I'm not so against the VC schools anymore as they seem to have much less of this sort of discrimination. But really, opening up 20% of schools to non-religious children (even keeping spaces for the religious kids in proportion to the church's budgetary contribution) would do a lot more toward bring the state school system up than would doing anything to private schools (and I'm all for doing something to private schools...).

It's completely unfair, I think. Does anyone else who doesn't have a personal stake in this agree? (Not that I don't care about your opinions, eemie, Oakmaiden and ScummyMummy... I was just wondering if this all sounded reasonable to someone who didn't have a child affected by it.)

Sounds outrageous to me too. How come nobody's making any fuss about this? Is it because people don't really understand how this funding works? I agree with you Aloha.

JJ's figures say that 25% of schools are CofE. Yet I read recently that less than 1% of the population belong to the Church of England/are regular churchgoers and that congregations are predominatly middle aged or older. So, I wonder where the schools are getting their churchgoing pupils from or maybe there is some explanation I haven't sussed?

Suedonim, maybe the discrepancy lies with the no of households/attendees who attend church long enough to get into the church school (i.e pretend to be CofE) but tell the truth in the surveys?

I'm with aloha on this one.

aloha, you're back!
Don't you dare sneak off again. The search party have been looking everywhere for you

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I'm all for changing the admissions critieria of church schools to let in more local non-church-going families and/or ensuring the church pays a larger proportion of the school costs. I haven't followed this thread for the last day or so, but reading through this argument, I think some valid points have been made - and this is coming from someone whose son is at an oversubscribed church school.

Oh good, one of my favourite posters has reappeared. Welcome back Aloha!

Maybe that's the case, WWW. If so, it's sad that people are having to tell porkies in order to get what should be theirs by right. BTW, I should have said less than one milion attend CofE churches, not 1%.

Maybe that's the case, WWW. If so, it's sad that people are having to tell porkies in order to get what should be theirs by right. BTW, I should have said less than one milion attend CofE churches, not 1%.

Actually, I approach this as a matter of principle. We aren't actually near any church schools so it I'm not griping because I can't get my ds into a local school (anyway, he's only 20months and I'm more bothered by nursery ATM). I think this is a bigger issue of discrimination and a misuse of public funds.

have just been mulling over church school admissions criteria. As with other church schools here, regular attendance at our church tops the list. Second is regular attendance at another church.

Now IMO that doesn't equal religious discrimation. Since when did you have to be a christian to attend church regularly? I mean if that was the case, if churches only let in christians, or only christins of their own sort, then how would they ever gain converts?

Would I be turned away at a Roman Cathlolic church gate because I was a methodist, an athiest or a hindu? ( can't speak from expereince as I am not RC, but I wouldn't ahve thought so). Don't churches operate an open-door policy? Do I have to be of a certain class, race or have a certain income to attend church? No.

Even if I was an athiest, I can still attend church to see what the 'other side' is saying, can't I? I don't have to join in with the prayers or take communion. We don't have church police, no inquisition nowadays either. I can just watch the proceedings. No one will throw me out.

Our school wants evidence that I attend church. Fine. I attend church about 2 or 3 times a month. I did this for about 18 months before we were offered a place. So I spent about 50 hours in total at my church. Not a lot of time in the grand scheme of things. I am not baptised, I do not take communion. My sons are not baptised either.

I can only speak from my experience, but I never stated on our school form that I was a christian. I stated (as I've said elsewhere) that I valued the sense of community. Mostly I wrote about how this school suited my ds's needs. When dh and I were interviewed by the head, we were not asked if we were christian or even C of E. We were also told our son did not have to take part in the religious life of the school if it went against our beliefs.

Talking to neighbours around here, the common perception is that the school only accepts those who are very religious. That's a pity and it's just not true.

The admissions criteria needs rewording, IMO. something along the lins of having willingness to be a part of the church community and witness it's services, as opposed to practicing its beliefs.

I can still see how the church system is unfair - too many people are led to assume that you have to be very religious to apply to a church school. I know some church schools may have a stricter admissions policy, so perhaps this needs amending, so there's no implication that you have to be attendance at church is taken as a sign that you follow the church's religioius beliefs. It is more a sign of your willingness to be part of the church community. And there are lots of other ways of proving this too - such as doing charity work connected with the church or helping to maintain the building.

thanks to those who have tried to answer my question - way down the thread now. i'm a little disappointed more people didn't engage with the question and instead rehashed the arguments against church schools that i had in my original post anyway. still, it's a valid and interesting debate, well argued.

Just a thought on the church schools thing, if faith schools were abolished would you also change the law that says all R.E./worship in state schools must be of a predominantly Christian nature, which in practice, esp in rural areas means CofE? As a Catholic I would have no problem with DD going to a truly secular school but will not send her to a supposedly non-faith school where the head is a born-again Christian and regularly has groups/speakers in who remind me of the Southern baptists.

I know in more mixed areas schools are more sensitive, but regardless of this the law, as it stands pushes the "established church". But maybe it's just time that the link between church and state was abolished?

I found this yesterday and thought it was really interesting:

The Report of the Church Schools Review Group , chaired by Lord Dearing, was officially published on 14 June 2001. The Way Ahead is the culmination of the Review Group's work after 18 months, and sets out the Review Group's vision for the future of Church of England schools and the Group's recommendations to the Church.

It's laid out extremely well and easy to navigate and find main points -- the contents section at the bottom of the pages has links to individual chapters. The document was commissioned by and submitted to the Archbishops' Council.

(I don't have time for more now, but, of course, have more to say.... )

But I'm not only not religious, I am strongly and morally opposed to religion (of all denominations), and regard it as dangerous, wrong-headed and superstitious nonsense responsible for much misery and fear in the word (this is my personal belief, which I hold just as strongly as religious believers hold their faith). So why would I spend my precious Sundays going to Church and taking my son with me? Just to get a child into a church school? Such hypocrisy! I don't go to Church not because I like a lie in on Sunday mornings(fat chance!) but because I think it is morally wrong. And anyway, that's when we go swimming and to the farmers market. And why on earth should church (or mosque or temple) going be a requirement of going to an educational establishment funding by the state (ie me, as much as anyone). I reiterate, if the church wants to run schools, and discriminate against the non-religious then they should pay for them themselves and not use state funding to do so. I regard this as utterly wrong and indefensible as well an incomprehensible.

I'm not arguing for Church schools to accept children of all (or no) faiths BTW. I'm arguing for the abolition of state funded faith schools, which are by their very nature highly discriminatory against those of a different faith or of no faith.

OOOOOOOOO ALoha...... controversial or what!!!?

I totally agree with you on that one. You're a brave woman for saying it.