Success on Faith School Cap

Back in December 2016 I participated in the letter writing campaign to prevent the abolition of the 50% cap on selection for faith schools. This is what I wrote to my MP:

Dear Jeremy Quin MP,

I am writing to you as a constituent to ask you to oppose the plans to allow new and existing religious free schools to discriminate against all your constituents who happen to fall outside a school's denomination. I have at least 3 objections:

1) Principles of fairness: it cannot be right that my tax money, and that of most taxpayers, goes towards educational establishments that would bar our children and grandchildren. In fact, of course, equity dictates quite the opposite; that the public funding of schools should require that they are open to all, in principle.

2) Integration: we should all know by now that a major challenge to us in the modern world is to effectively integrate our multi-cultural populations. Secularism has proved the best approach to this problem, for the religious and non-religious alike. Gandhi, recognising the challenge that faced the Indian subcontinent, was religious and a secularist, and said that the state should never promote denominational education out of public funds. As I'm sure you know, David Cameron said about the existing 50% rule:

‘It cannot be right…that people can grow up and go to school and hardly ever come into meaningful contact with people from other backgrounds and faiths. That doesn’t foster a sense of shared belonging and understanding – it can drive people apart.’

Well, he was wrong about Brexit, but I hope you’ll agree that on this score he was absolutely right! The evidence tells us that religious selection in schools entrenches religious segregation in the community, and reduces social cohesion.

3) Educational standards: faith schools have a worse record than other schools in teaching anti-science, such as creationism, and promoting views that discriminate against minorities, like the LGBT community. Despite the teaching of creationism being banned, this still didn't prevent Ofsted awarding a status of 'Good' to a school that censored questions on evolution in a science exam and admitted to teaching creationism (https://humanism.org.uk/2014/11/13/bha-questions-school-censored-evolution-exam-questions-receiving-good-rating-ofsted-inspection/). Allowing full selection will increase the dangers of the wholesale indoctrination of children with these retrograde views. Of course, that is exactly why religious groups lobby for full selection!

So I hope you agree that on grounds of fairness, integration and educational standards, the removal of religious selection is what we should be aiming for, not its re-introduction. Thank you.

Mr Quinn's reply made the following defence of removing the cap:

While the number of children in a good or outstanding school has risen dramatically in the last few years it remains the case that too many children in this country still do not have access to either. The proposals that have been put forward look to deliver an even more diverse school system that gives all children, whatever their background, the opportunity to achieve their potential. 

Faith schools have a strong record of high pupil attainment and are often very popular with parents. Current rules, however, restrict the ability for more good faith schools to be opened, without succeeding in promoting integration. The proposals would see the current cap on the number of pupils who can be admitted on the basis of faith when the school is oversubscribed removed. 

At the time I didn't appreciate the significance of the sentence "Current rules, however, restrict the ability for more good faith schools to be opened, without succeeding in promoting integration.". This argument was driven by the decision of the Catholic Church in England and Wales to boycott the free schools programme because of the 50% cap. But, as Humanists UK (formerly the BHA) and the Accord Coalition have pointed out, the Catholic Church's stand on this issue is bogus; the Accord Coalition says:

The Catholic Church of England and Wales has opted not to open Catholic free schools, which is a self imposed boycott designed to undermine the 50% cap. It is very telling that state funded Catholic schools in other developed countries do not select pupils by faith, nor do most private Catholic schools in England.

Now the Government has announced that it will break its manifesto promise and keep the 50% cap on selection. Chief Executive of Humanists UK Andrew Copson said:

The decision to keep the cap on faith-based selection is a victory for integration, mutual understanding, and the interests of children. It is also a significant victory for Humanists UK and its supporters, who have successfully led the national campaign against the removal of the cap and in favour of open, integrated schools.

If this vision is to be fully realised, then attention must now turn to preventing new, fully segregated schools by another means, which the Government has now unwisely created. The need for the Government to save face, or to appease a handful of religious organisations and their unreasonable demands, should not be prioritised over what’s best for children and society. Today’s u-turn makes clear that fully segregated school intakes are anathema to an open, diverse society, but the Government should now recognise this throughout the education system and not create new segregation.

Kudos to him, and also to Rabbi Jonathan Romain, chair of the Accord Coalition, for spearheading this campaign. The second paragraph of Copson's quote above, however, points to a £50m expansion fund that the Government has announced for the voluntary aided sector. This appears to be a sop to the Catholic Church and others for the Government not following through on their manifesto commitment to remove the 50% cap. It is ridiculous to be spending money on segregated schools at a time of reduced community cohesion and a squeeze on budgets generally.

I agree with Copson and Romain that fully segregated schools are anathema to an open, diverse society. Here's Jonathan Romain:

There is a real danger that the growth in faith schools today will be blamed in 30 years' time for the social disharmony then. It is not too late to reverse that trend, if we want a society that has diversity within unity, not at the expense of it. Perhaps this Passover the message should be: "Let my children mix."

Hear, hear.

UPDATE - tweet from Andrew Copson today:

Damian Hinds' @BBCr4today defence of funding new 100% selective faith schools incoherent and it's clear why: the reality is that the argument for inclusion was won, government has nowhere to hide, and this is just a dirty little workaround to appease religious lobbyists .#r4today

— Andrew Copson (@andrewcopson) May 11, 2018

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Ideology Driving Faith Schools Initiative

On 13th September this year I wrote, with the help of the BHA, to my MP, Jeremy Quin, about the recent announcement on faith schools to abolish the 50% cap on entrance faith requirements:

Dear Jeremy Quin MP,

I am writing to you as a constituent to ask you to oppose the plans to allow new and existing religious free schools to discriminate against all your constituents who happen to fall outside a school's denomination. I have at least 3 objections:

1) Principles of fairness: it cannot be right that my tax money, and that of most taxpayers, goes towards educational establishments that would bar our children and grandchildren. In fact, of course, equity dictates quite the opposite; that the public funding of schools should require that they are open to all, in principle.

2) Integration: we should all know by now that a major challenge to us in the modern world is to effectively integrate our multi-cultural populations. Secularism has proved the best approach to this problem, for the religious and non-religious alike. Gandhi, recognising the challenge that faced the Indian subcontinent, was religious and a secularist, and said that the state should never promote denominational education out of public funds. As I'm sure you know, David Cameron said about the existing 50% rule:

‘It cannot be right…that people can grow up and go to school and hardly ever come into meaningful contact with people from other backgrounds and faiths. That doesn’t foster a sense of shared belonging and understanding – it can drive people apart.’

Well, he was wrong about Brexit, but I hope you’ll agree that on this score he was absolutely right! The evidence tells us that religious selection in schools entrenches religious segregation in the community, and reduces social cohesion.

3) Educational standards: faith schools have a worse record than other schools in teaching anti-science, such as creationism, and promoting views that discriminate against minorities, like the LGBT community. Despite the teaching of creationism being banned, this still didn't prevent Ofsted awarding a status of 'Good' to a school that censored questions on evolution in a science exam and admitted to teaching creationism (https://humanism.org.uk/2014/11/13/bha-questions-school-censored-evolution-exam-questions-receiving-good-rating-ofsted-inspection/). Allowing full selection will increase the dangers of the wholesale indoctrination of children with these retrograde views. Of course, that is exactly why religious groups lobby for full selection!

So I hope you agree that on grounds of fairness, integration and educational standards, the removal of religious selection is what we should be aiming for, not its re-introduction. Thank you.

He replied on 11th October:

Dear Mark Jones 

  

Thank you for contacting me about faith schools. 

The Prime Minister has made clear that the Government is dedicated to making Britain a true meritocracy and that education lies at the heart of that mission. The Government has recently published a consultation that asks for views on a range of proposals aimed at bolstering the education system's ability to extend opportunity to all. 

While the number of children in a good or outstanding school has risen dramatically in the last few years it remains the case that too many children in this country still do not have access to either. The proposals that have been put forward look to deliver an even more diverse school system that gives all children, whatever their background, the opportunity to achieve their potential. 

Faith schools have a strong record of high pupil attainment and are often very popular with parents. Current rules, however, restrict the ability for more good faith schools to be opened, without succeeding in promoting integration. The proposals would see the current cap on the number of pupils who can be admitted on the basis of faith when the school is oversubscribed removed. 

The Government has stressed that if this rule is implemented it would be complimented [sic] by more effective requirements to ensure faith schools are properly inclusive. I can assure you that the Government will ensure that safeguards are in place to promote diversity and inclusivity in faith schools, so that pupils of all faiths and none are able to play a full part in the life of the school. 

The Government's consultation is asking for views from teachers, children and parents. If you would like to make your views known, you can do so online before 12 December. Visit https://consult.education.gov.uk/school-frameworks/schools-that-work-for-everyone. 

Thank you again for taking the time to contact me. 

  

Jeremy Quin 

MP for Horsham 

House of Commons 

London SW1A 0AA 

As you can see, the response does not engage with the points in my missive except in the most tangential way. How increasing the amount of faith-based discrimination faith schools can engage in will 'deliver an even more diverse school system' I cannot imagine. Unless they simply mean we will have an even more segregated school system, which is the inevitable outcome of such a measure. And I honestly don't know what 'Current rules, however, restrict the ability for more good faith schools to be opened, without succeeding in promoting integration' means!

The suspicion is that members of the Government simply want to see more children subject to faith-based education for their own religious reasons. This suspicion is not allayed by their manipulation of the statistics to serve this agenda - the Department for Education has been ordered to amend ‘misleading’ faith school figures by the UK Statistics Authority following a BHA complaint:

BHA Education Campaigner Jay Harman commented, ‘We’re glad the UK Statistics Authority has taken action on what was a clear attempt by the Government to massage the figures in a way that misleadingly presents the 50% cap as a failure. The idea that allowing schools to admit children from only one particular religion is in any way compatible with promoting integration was counter-intuitive to begin with, and it should come as a surprise to no-one that the figures demonstrate this.’

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Do Catholics want their Children to Grow up Bigots?

I ask because that is what the Catholic Church want, and I don't believe any of my Catholic friends would agree with them.

Cardinal Vincent Nicholls has sent a letter to parishioners urging them to oppose gay marriage:

We have a duty to married people today, and to those who come after us, to do all we can to ensure that the true meaning of marriage is not lost for future generations.

The 'true meaning'? Well, according to Catholics:

The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, by its nature is ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring...

So because someone once, in a far off age, wrote down that marriage is between a man and a woman, for the procreation of children, so it has to be for ever, regardless of facts and changes in mores. This sort of brutish intransigence is a perfect demonstration of the evil of religion.

And now they want to infect children with the same despicable bigotry; the Catholic Education Service has sent this letter to all Catholic secondary schools, where it has been read out in assembly in at least one school, and the pupils urged to sign a petition against gay marriage.

This is the reality of faith schools, as Andrew Copson highlights in today's Guardian:

But, with the evidence mounting, the government should be investigating not just the incidents of the last fortnight, but also the whole principle of allowing such discrimination within our state education system at all.

I cannot stop grown-ups from being bigots (and believe me, I've tried!) but faith schools deliver in-built discrimination to our children, by definition, even before we consider the bizarre and irrational tenets that can infect each individual faith. Discrimination should not be state-funded, if we want a society which values equality for all.

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Cameron Opts for Blinkered Dogmatism

The Guardian has arranged for various prominent figures to ask Prime Minister David Cameron some searching and not so searching questions. Terry Wogan asked "What does the PM think the public think of him?". I mean, really, what sort of answer is that going to elicit? Nothing that is going to tell us anything interesting about Cameron or his views.

Richard Dawkins did ask an important question:

Why do you support faith schools for children who are too young to have chosen their faith, thereby implicitly labelling them with the faith of their parents, whereas you wouldn't dream of so labelling a "Keynesian child" or a "Conservative child"?

This is an important question in a modern, secular society. Peter Robinson has today announced his intention to appeal to the whole community in Northern Ireland, to try to create a united Northern Ireland. This is probably a fool's errand until measures are taken to reduce sectarianism in that blighted province, and it's hard to see how he could get from here to there without removing the deep divide that is caused by faith schools. Of course, I don't pretend this change would be sufficient; just a necessary one.

The situation is less serious in Great Britain, probably due in no small part, I suspect, to Catholic persecution in the centuries after the Reformation - Catholicism has simply had very little standing in the body politic, so it has been unable to influence policies and attitudes sufficiently to generate conflict within communities. But in an increasingly pluralist society, the ghettoising effect of faith schools is unlikely to decrease inter-community tensions. So, can we hope for a serious engagement with the issue from David Cameron? He replies:

Comparing John Maynard Keynes to Jesus Christ shows, in my view, why Richard Dawkins just doesn't really get it. 

Clearly that would be too much to ask!

Notice, first, that Cameron simply dismisses Dawkins's view out of hand, mockingly, as the over-arch Anglican blogger Cranmer notices. So, it's often said that Dawkins mocks believers and that he fails to take their beliefs seriously. Yet here we have the Prime Minister of this country, half voted in by the populace, responsible to us for his decisions, refusing to engage with Dawkins's question seriously and effectively mocking him.

Is it fair to say he doesn't engage? I think so. Dawkins is not comparing Keynes and Christ, although I dare say Keynes's contribution to the well-being of society may be the greater. He's comparing what it's appropriate to teach kids in our publicly funded schools. Is it appropriate to teach them that Keynes's policies are the right and only way an economy should be run? I don't think so. Is it appropriate to teach them that Christ's way is the right and only way to run one's life? Again, no, I don't think so.

Now, to be charitable I suspect that what Cameron may be hinting at, but not expressing, is that there are normative elements to teaching children about Christ that are missing from an economics lesson. But this makes his case even poorer, because, in a secular society, peculiarly normative elements of any religion, or dogma, must be excluded to ensure pluralism isn't threatened by state sanction of one particular view. This point, if that is what he is hinting at, tells against faith schools.

Cameron goes on:

I think faith schools are very often good schools. Why? Because the organisation that's backing them – the church or the mosque or the synagogue – is part of the community. 

The organisation that's backing the school is part of the community? This is almost tautological. Of course they're part of the community, as is the local council. Just being part of the local community is not sufficient qualification for running a school, else local political parties, or even hoodie gangs, would qualify.

And it brings a sense of community and the backing of an institution to a school.

Again, we have many institutions that don't run schools; being an institution is not a sufficient qualification to run a school.

The church was providing good schools long before the state got involved, and we should respect the fact that it's not just the state that can provide education but other bodies, too.

Well, churches have provided bad schools long before the state got involved too, so this point has little purchase. But, more importantly, we're talking about state-funded faith schools here, not private religious schools. Again, Cameron offers an argument that barely qualifies as one, and refuses to engage properly with the important issues that are at stake. Plainly other bodies can provide education, but the question is what sort of society do we want to build? Do we want a society populated by well rounded critical thinkers, or do we want it populated by blinkered dogmatists? If the first, then what do we need to do to provide such a population?

Faith schools are more likely to teach one dogma in preference to another, else why Cameron's initial dig at Dawkins? So my contention is that faith schools are more likely to teach a specifically Christian/Muslim/Jewish dogma in preference to all others, and Cameron seems to think this is a justification for faith schools. So they are more likely to deliver blinkered dogmatists. I suppose it's possible that Cameron would prefer a society of blinkered dogmatists, in which case I understand his answer to Dawkins's question.

UPDATE 28th November 2011: 

It's ironic that Cameron is being so cavalier with his approach to faith schools when, as I mentioned above, Peter Robinson is wrestling with their effects in Northern Ireland. Here is what he said on the Today programme this morning:

We bring children up in different schools and then we scratch our heads when there's division in society.

He called for an end to "religious apartheid" in NI schools.

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