Church schools should stop discriminating against teachers and pupils, say church leaders

[edam]

This news story is interesting. New group of church leaders and 'secular figures' campaigning to stop religious schools discriminating against non-religious families and staff, or those from the 'wrong' denomination.

(I have looked to see if there's a thread on this already but couldn't find one.)

no need to close the schools down, just withdraw state funding and let the churches/mosques/whoever fund the rest

we also live in an area chocka with religious schools. it is a load of rubbish and they should all be abolished and school lotteries brought in. that would put the wind up a fair few people round here.

(what particularly annoyed me for no logical reason at all was the c of e schools prioritise christians of any denomination but the catholic schools prioritise catholics in 5 different categories (attend church regularly through to don't go at all but baptised) but don't prioritise other christians at all. what's all that about?)

Ta edam

morocco - 'they should all be abolished and school lotteries brought in' - woohoo! I agree with you but almost no-one else on this board does, IME (esp. about lotteries).

we can be in a minority of 2 then policywonk

altho I notice I contradicted myself there. they shouldn't be abolished as such, oh no, just not funded by the tax payer anymore. I'm guessing they will disappear pretty quickly after that

our local muslim girls school prioritises according to the school of thought you follow. I thought that was interesting as well. made me want to go and google the differences between all the schools of thought

If you randomly assigned the teachers too (just within the local area so they didn't need to move home) then all the schools would be equally good and it wouldn't matter which you went to.

But there are lots of tax-funded benefits for which many of us are not staightforwardly eligible. E.g. those benefits that support disabled people, etc. The point is: what is it that justifies restricted eligibility? We are happy with it when it directly serves social justice, as in the case of benefits for disabled people. In the case of faith schools it doesn't: but there might be other ends served.

In any case, we are all eligible for participation in faith schools -- conditionally. If you form the right beliefs (sincerely), you are eligible. That is exactly parallel with if you develop a clinical need you are eligible for the medicine, etc.

Many people are not in a position to develop the kinds of belief about opera, or university education, that make tax-funded accesiblilty of these goods available to them. Should opera and univwersity therefore not be tax supported? I don't think so, because there are social goods dependent on the existance of a thriving culture. And similarly there might be social goods dependent on the religious diversity supported by faith schools.

Fair points thready. Although I don't really agree with the disability case - because any one of us could develop a disability at any time (if we don't already have one).

Also, I'm not sure that it is directly comparable to developing a clinical need. Developing a clinical need is not something that you do deliberately or intentionally, whereas religion (I'd say, as an atheist) is a free-willed choice. As you say though, it probably is comparable to tax funding of the arts. Which, to be honest, is not something I'd prioritise, personally.

Threadwworm, people who are not disabled are eligible for disability benefits if they become disabled. They won't be barred from claiming disability allowance on the grounds of their religion.

tax funding of the arts is not excluding any group of people. Tax funding of religious schools is.

I don't think any of your arguments hold, thread. The clinical one is completely different.

you got me there threadwworm, opera shouldn't be funded either as it is appalling elitist rubbish. but that's another thread surely

what are the other ends served then? apart from religious segregation? well thats a brilliant concept to encourage in todays climate. well done Tony Blair for that insightful decision to extend segregated schooling beyond c of e/catholic to include other religions as well. Northern Ireland being a superb example of the way segregated schooling encourages tolerance of religious difference. not. can just imagine the M15 thinktank on that one. 'how can we better integrate muslims into UK society' oh I know, lets build separate schools for all children of all religious backgrounds so they never have to form friendships with anyone who has a different religious pov to them. then they;ll never argue about anything or feel threatened or anything.

duh and double duh

this country is being run by Homer Simpson

no, Homer would have done a better job of running the country

boom boom

I don't know at all whether in fact I would want to defend faith schoolss. But in theory I would, in an ideal world.

Where I live there is not the tension generated by over-demand for high-performing schools which also happen to be faith schools, so I am a bit out of the loop.

I think I would want to say that fiath schools serve important cultural ends, so ought to be supported, but that in many circumstances the overall provision (and lack of provision) of schooling means that faith schools thwart certain other ends -- related to social justice. There are multiple objectives, that are sometimes in competition. Social justice probably trumps cultural goods, but it is a messy calculation.

whoops lots of cross-posts. We are all eligible for faith schools in the sense thatif we acquired religion we would fulfil the criteria for participation in the school.

Unless there are tax-funded faith schools that don't acknowledge conversion to a faith. That would be different.

I certainly think you're right that education seems to be greatly affected by the local situation. For instance, I think that a lottery would work very well in my area (urban, dense population, v good schools in affluent areas and v average schools in working class areas, all with a few miles of each other), but can also see that it might be a stupid idea in some rural areas.

Certainly, near me, ALL the good primaries (and I mean ALL) are faith schools, and my children don't stand a hope in hell of getting into them (not that I'd want to send my children to a faith school in the first place). I do think that that is just unsupportable.

Threadworm - some don't apparently.

This one for example.

Just what important cultural end do faith schools serve? Homophobia? Sectarianism? Misogyny? Teaching mythology as fact and restricting access to knowledge because it might offend the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

There are also obviously way too many CoE/RC schools. In my old area it has been decided that a new secondary school was needed. Guess what, the new school is Catholic. There are already two Catholic schools in the borough. There did not appear to be any campaign for more Catholic places, or any reason for catholicism to be on the rise locally, just a little bit of cash offered by the diocese. I think this is deeply wrong. Where are the humanist or secular schools, or for that matter the schools that prioritise parents with no belief? The number of people actively practicing christianity is falling, so the schools should be being scaled back, not increased.

Oh, and the Church should be disestablished.

admission policy for the london oratory

here

the school my son will go to

perhaps if cherie blair is a mumsnetter she can explain (with more sophistication) why her sons (and mine) can go to that school but your's can't.

'it's not a question of not wanting them,
it's a question of affordability. alot of parents simply couldn't afford to pay'

Just from my experience of number of atteners at our school, but Church paying costs of those children to attend a private wuld not equal the annual contribution.

Obv. attendance woud rapidly escalate- but looking purely at the numbers I see at Church when I attend (ie, 3 famillies? although I think about 5 attend the evangelical and one the Mosque)

'any reason for catholicism to be on the rise locally'

fwiw a massive rise in attendances at Catholic Mass due to immigration from Europe- eg Poland

Thread- not quite right: not all people can just access faith schools

One criteria is attendance, I know of a Nurse who worked sunday, couldn't attend, so didn't get in; a mum of several might have the same issue- or one with a child (sn, maybe ebo) who couldn't sit through a service. Our Vicar rarely sees us due to dh's shifts and the boys sn, fortunately he understands. Our last one however, despite me running a Church kids group, refused me Baptism for non-attendance due to lack of sn childcare.

Sorry, but look, people are just missing the point. It is not a question of whether there are other schools nearby, whether you can walk to them etc. it is fundamentally wrong that the state should be providing any funding to schools which select on the basis of religion.

The entire concept that the state should fund these types of schools is against every concept of the separation of church and state which forms the basis of modern society, i.e. that religion should not dictate government policy which in this case it does. This is the difference between a democracy and a theocracy. Can no-one see that?

Yes, religious schools should be free to exist but solely if financed by the private sector (i.e. by the church, or fee paying parents) and not by the state.

And please, please, please could people stop saying that they pay for services which they never use and might never use. The point (as others have made) is that they are eligible to use these services if they need or if they want.

cestlavie;

i agree with you, the argument about paying taxes for services we'll never use isn't a brilliant one (although there are services i pay for that i wont ever be able to access...but i'm not going into it again)

i think you'll just have to accept thats how the school system is.

"c'est la vie"

No, daftpunk, we don't have to accept discrimination based on witless superstition and corruption. That's why Accord was founded: to campaign against discrimination on the grounds of who can claim to have the biggest and best imaginary friend.

If stupid people want to believe that assorted dodgy old myths are facts, that's their lookout, but that doesn;t entitle them to special status or put them above the laws against discrimination that apply to everyone else.

That is rot
Why should we just accept something that is unfair and blatantly discriminatory?

Have you never heard of the Sufragettes ffs?
You would be a second class citizen to this day if they had taken your attitude!

I think I may start a Wizard of Oz school based on the fact that I believe it is true.

Then the govt can pay for it

And I will exclude anyone who doesn't swear on the Wizard's knob that it is all true and that they will give up every Sunday morning skipping down the yellow brick road and putting their hard earned pennies into a little sack for me to spend on sherry.

(honestly that is how religion appears to me)