Over at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free blog, Liberal England’s Jonathan Calder argues ‘of course policy on faith schools is a compromise – that’s how social institutions are most often made to work’. Here’s an excerpt:
… if, in a surge of Jacobin purity, the party had voted for an outright ban on faith schools, it would have been only a gesture. Few Liberal Democrats would have campaigned on a policy that threatened to alienate every church and disrupt a third of the schools in the country.
Besides, it’s not faith schools that are the problem: it is the conventional state schools. Too often it is their failings that encourage parents – like James’s atheist friends and their Orthodox Jewish neighbours – to pretend to a faith they do not have in order to get their child into a church school.
At their Harrogate Spring conference, the Liberal Democrats recognised this by adopting a raft of policies aimed at restoring confidence in these. Party members voted to cut infant classes to 15 pupils – the sort of size commonly found in the private sector – and to spend £2.5bn on extra help for children from poor families. They also backed a leaner national curriculum and an independent authority to monitor standards.
You can read Jonathan’s article in full here.
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9 Comments
I’m not sure Jonathan fairly represents my position. I didn’t say I was against faith schools existing at all, I said I was against them being able to select.
I can live with messy compromises and the motion as originally worded was indeed a messy compromise. I would just prefer that to what we have – something that preaches about inclusivity but lets existing faith schools off the hook.
Either way, I’ve probably gone on about it too much already. We have worse policies…
What I want to know is when are the proponents of faith based selection *in the state sector* going to talk about the choices of those whose opportunities it denies….
This isnt about denying the right of faith schools to exist as James rightly says this is about how our tax dollars get spent….
Until recently, this was not an issue. Most people who were not Catholics had at least a nominal attachment to the Church of England or a nonconformist church, so had no problems with a little bit of generic protestantism being taught in schools. Catholics had their own schools, but no-one supposed they were any better than other schools, so the idea of non-Catholics insisting their children get a place at these schools even at the cost of pushing out the children of Catholics to do so just did not exist.
The system was not planned or seen as bestowing any special privileges to Catholics, and I suppose the general attitudes was “well if these people want their own schools to push their silly religion, let them”.
From the point of view of Catholics, the issue is “We’ve done well, now you want to push our kids out of the school system we’ve built up and take a bit of it for yourself”. Is it so grossly unfair of them to think that way? Which of us, having out effort into building something up wouldn’t object if the state came along and said “Now you must share it with others, who don’t even really want what you built it for”?
Rational debate on this issue seems impossible, because any attempt at discussing what is really fair gets wrecked by bile from those arguing against faith schools who generally can’t resist loading it with gratuitous anti-religious sentiment. The replies to Jonathan’s article in “Common is free” illustrate. The reaction from those involved with faith schools is to think “You hate us, but you’re jealous of our success, and you’re motivated by that mixture of hatred and jealousy”. Again, I think understandably, that does not result in productive dialogue.
The belief system that is atheism or secularism is well represented within the state sector of education. Those who hold such views have, typically, far greater choice of school, than those seeking places in faith schools. But, you to restrict choice for households like my own.
My step-daughter goes to a Joint RC / CofE **Comprehensive School**. We chose it as it is both comprehesive and it’s Christian ethos relecfts our own. This is unlike the THREE Grammar schools in the borough.
Now, if selection is the issue, might fellow ‘liberals’ ostensibly seeking to foster equality of opportunity, focus their attentions on the remaining Grammar Schools and the many selective Academies ? Or is it the faith dimension of schools and sneering at those who have a religious faith the motivator for such ‘liberals; ?
Further, I don’t see any moves to end the charitable status and attendant tax breaks enjoyed by the less-than-inclusive independent sector being challenged. Why is that ?
James
The Grauniad asked me to write it as a reply to you as you had already offered them a piece on the subject when I got in touch.
But I think it’s clear I am mostly talking about attitudes in the wider party and beyond.
“The belief system that is atheism or secularism is well represented within the state sector of education.”
That, Barrie, is complete nonsense. You must be assuming that any school that is not explicitly religious must be an “atheist school.” But I am not aware of the existence of any such schools. Moreover, I wouldn’t want to see any atheist schools established – not in any event, and certainly not if they discriminated against others as faith schools do.
Why can’t we just have schools that are dedicated to learning? What is so difficult about that?
Barrie,
It’s a bit of both because I am a passionate believer in a fully secular state and that this secularism should be reflected in public policy but yes of course selection is also the issue as well…it’s true as Matthew said that rational debate on this issue is made hard by people taking aim at religion in general but it’s probably not surprising that those most opposed to faith selection tend not to be religious though with the formation of ACCORD maybe that will change…
It is perhaps instructive that on my blog I have a promimant Conservative blogger who is also totally opposed to faith based selection so this is not even a party lines issue…the fact is that our new policy falls down on all counts and has nothing to recommend it other than forging some hashed-up compromise within our own party….
Darrell,
You’ll find no harsher critic of selection by ability by selective schools. I merely ask, as a liberal, that diversity can be encompassed within our state school system. Even more especially, and I don’t count you amongst this number, it is not nice to read / hear of the sneering attitudes some ‘liberals’ have towards those of us with a faith.
I look forward to being in agreement with you again soon – as I am on most questions.
I’m sorry about all the sneering Barrie. OK, I’m not really. But you’ve got to recognise that there is a link between the level of sneering and the fact that some of us think that certain reforms are so long overdue that the only reason the status quo persists is that some people are clinging on to their religious privilege as if their afterlives depended on it.
All religious people should be secular in the political sense. Secularism is the best thing for religion, because being linked to the institutions of the state actually inhibits the ability of religions to evangelise honestly and in a free market of ideas. This is a principle well understood in America for instance where religion is thriving.
I can cut you a deal. If you guys start advocating secularism – in your own best interests – then I might be a bit less rude about religion. But only a bit less rude, because it’s still completely insane . . .