But the government doesn't feel the need to protect communists, fascists or nationalists from discrimination; nor does it subsidise schools where little communists, fascists and nationalists can be educated away from each other.
I think I did inadvertently end up in a Manchester United segregated school though. Brrrrr.
Religious schools are indeed a big pile of poo, but the current government is making schools "specialist" in various subjects, including sport and business (how the f**k do you select an 11 year old for aptitude in business?), which makes about as much sense...
Most of the Christian ones (and in some ways, I suspect the other ones) are more for kids from overly fussy middle-class parents who think that an education with "religious values" is somehow better than a "bog standard" one. They will read the Daily Mail. Most of the religious nuttery happens in private "flogging 4 year olds is sanctioned by God" ones. And that one state one with the creationists. Gah, f**in Blair. Most state religious schools are like Grammar schools but totally open about the daft entry criteria </troll>
They don't have state religious schools in the US do they? Hrm...
Do we have religious discrimiation laws in England yet? I know there's something in Northern Ireland, but that's a whole other barrel of mad monkeys in bowler hats. Think there was talk of something, but not with the same bite as sex or race discrimination laws?
Hey, hey. As an overly fussy middle class atheist I'd just like to be able to get Kathy into a good academic state school which doesn't take her on days out to Creationist theme parks and tell her that the moon wanes because God gets tired. I don't read the Daily Mail, but I do read the Ofsted reports, and I may have a nasty choice coming up shortly.
It's nuts, really. On the one hand you have atheist parents who feel they have to go to church for a year to qualify for a decent school (I wonder how much of the church attendance figures they account for...). On the other hand I have a deeply religious friend in London who is strongly against infant baptism (since it should be your own choice as an adult) who nevertheless has had her son baptised because the local non-Ofsted-failure requires it.
And it gets worse. The LEA has to provide transport to school, provided that you've accepted allcation to your nearest (and it's more than some qualifying distance away, yadda yadda). Unless they've allocated you to your nearest school, and it turns out to be Catholic, and you're not, in which case you're not entitled to a place on the bus even if there are some spare. Here.
Arrgh. Good luck whatever happens. OK, I didn't realise quite how common the problems were (I've only come across fluffier religious schools who couln't care less), that is utter pants. Though... (sorry) even if religious schools were banned tomorrow, there would be similar, not as severe, problems cropping up with selective schools I suspect. Maybe not getting on the bus, but say the local good school is a sports academy, and you have a kid who is borderline dyspraxic and couldn't care less about team sports, like muggins here. And then there's the whole Grammar school issue...
I dunno, I just feel that we're more than capable of messing things up with or without religion, and worrying about it distracts us from real issues of discrimiation, prejudice, greed, stupidity etc that will still happen whether it's there or not.
This is true. I'd be much happier, though, getting her through academic hoops than religious hoops, partly because I think we both have that particular aptitude but partly because I think academic capabilities are inherently Good and should be nurtured, whereas I think religious observance is worse than useless and I wouldn't want to expose her to it anyway. Sports Academies are an interesting thought-experiment, since that's an aptitude I don't have, in spades, and I'm not interested but I'm not desperately anti either, and it doubtless would correlate with academic results. But I don't imagine she's going to be naturally sporty, and you don't want to go somewhere where you're not reasonably good at what they value. And even if she is I'd rather she spent the time on academics than kicking balls around [fx: Oxbridge snob].
FFS. Why can't they make schools which give good sound general education and allow individual kids to specialise? All this beacon school crap is exactly not the direction they ought to be going in.
And besides, if your school decides to specialise, and decides it wants to specialise in IT or languages, it gets told it can't because other schools have specialised in those already, and it has to specialise in Sport, even if its interests and enthusiastic teachers are in languages and IT. So it has to fake a specialisation in something it isn't interested in or good at, to get the extra kudos and funding, and what's the point of sports academies anyway?
Given half the chance, the BNP would like their own segregated schools (kind of got them in a weird kind of way in Burnley...). They want to build large walls between the communities/ghettos in Burnley to stop rioting. Sounds an awful lot like Northern Ireland's "Peace Walls". They may well, in public, claim that this is a religious issue (Muslims are dangerous y'see), but they don't spend much time proclaiming their Christianity for some reason. Betcha they'd love to do the same thing in Tottenham given half the chance.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-26 04:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-26 04:35 am (UTC)Religious schools are indeed a big pile of poo, but the current government is making schools "specialist" in various subjects, including sport and business (how the f**k do you select an 11 year old for aptitude in business?), which makes about as much sense...
Most of the Christian ones (and in some ways, I suspect the other ones) are more for kids from overly fussy middle-class parents who think that an education with "religious values" is somehow better than a "bog standard" one. They will read the Daily Mail. Most of the religious nuttery happens in private "flogging 4 year olds is sanctioned by God" ones. And that one state one with the creationists. Gah, f**in Blair. Most state religious schools are like Grammar schools but totally open about the daft entry criteria </troll>
They don't have state religious schools in the US do they? Hrm...
Do we have religious discrimiation laws in England yet? I know there's something in Northern Ireland, but that's a whole other barrel of mad monkeys in bowler hats. Think there was talk of something, but not with the same bite as sex or race discrimination laws?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-26 06:37 am (UTC)It's nuts, really. On the one hand you have atheist parents who feel they have to go to church for a year to qualify for a decent school (I wonder how much of the church attendance figures they account for...). On the other hand I have a deeply religious friend in London who is strongly against infant baptism (since it should be your own choice as an adult) who nevertheless has had her son baptised because the local non-Ofsted-failure requires it.
And it gets worse. The LEA has to provide transport to school, provided that you've accepted allcation to your nearest (and it's more than some qualifying distance away, yadda yadda). Unless they've allocated you to your nearest school, and it turns out to be Catholic, and you're not, in which case you're not entitled to a place on the bus even if there are some spare. Here.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-26 07:24 am (UTC)I dunno, I just feel that we're more than capable of messing things up with or without religion, and worrying about it distracts us from real issues of discrimiation, prejudice, greed, stupidity etc that will still happen whether it's there or not.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-26 08:45 am (UTC)FFS. Why can't they make schools which give good sound general education and allow individual kids to specialise? All this beacon school crap is exactly not the direction they ought to be going in.
And besides, if your school decides to specialise, and decides it wants to specialise in IT or languages, it gets told it can't because other schools have specialised in those already, and it has to specialise in Sport, even if its interests and enthusiastic teachers are in languages and IT. So it has to fake a specialisation in something it isn't interested in or good at, to get the extra kudos and funding, and what's the point of sports academies anyway?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-26 09:25 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-26 07:30 am (UTC)