Sir Cyril Taylor, who heads the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust and is a government adviser, says that schools that are overwhelmingly Muslim should be replaced with schools serving a mixed community and highlighted problems with policing and protecting children in such segregated areas. (Added to "Faith Schools and Social Segregation: Disadvantages of Divisive Religious Behavior" by Vexen Crabtree (2003).)

I don't know if he admits that the same logic applies to all faith schools - hundreds of sociological experiments have proven that raising children in identity-segregated schools (black, female, foreign, ethnic, religious, etc) increases social tension and inter-group crime, undermines social coherence and causes intolerance, aggression and conflict between groups.

Given the present wars between the West and various Muslim states (such as Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan), and the terrorist attacks in our own countries, it is absurd to continue to raise children up as "religious" before they have a chance to think for themselves, and doubly mad to do so where extremists (such as Catholic anti-abortion extremists, or Muslim anti-Western ones) are actively searching for alread-indoctrinated recruits to further bend to more extreme causes.

Faith schools are suicide, divisive and dangerous anachronisms.

Tags: child care, child protection, faith schools, indoctrination, religion, schooling, segregation
Current Location: Germany
Listening To: Warcraft 2 theme tune.

"Faith Schools: Abolishing Sectarian Education Decreases Inter-Racial Violence and Curbs Religious Extremism" by Vexen Crabtree (2003)

Page has a new conclusion and has been lightly edited:

In 2001 there were 7000 state faith schools in the UK (of 25000). The worst teach creationism (that the world is only 6000 years old, against all scientific evidence) and some, although they excel at religious education and Koranic studies, fail on everything else from science to fitness. Reports on the race riots of 2001 criticized faith schools for creating the segregation that increases racial and religious sectarian tensions. Over 800 studies by social psychologists have found that cooperating and extended contact between racial groups is a very good way of producing positive race relations. Faith schools sometimes produce better-than-average results, but they also select students based on ability (despite attempts to stop them), whereas state schools accept poorer students in the first place. The Home Office, National Union of Teachers, Chief Schools Inspector, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers have all spoken out against faith schools and the United Nations Human Rights Commission recommends non-sectarian education, especially of children. The National Secular Society has long campaigned for the government to reverse the creation of faith schools (100 new ones since 1997), and instead convert faith schools back into all-inclusive secular schools where religion and race do not define the children. Abolishing faith schools will decrease social tension between ethnic and religious groups, increase the fairness of the schools system (as religious schools accept fewer poor and disadvantaged students), and reduce the scope for religious extremism and indoctrination.

Tags: children, creationism, education, faith schools, fundamentalism, indoctrination, intolerance, prejudice, racism, religion, schooling, sectarianism, segregation, tolerance, vardy foundation
Current Location: Germany

Sign this petition (you have to be a UK citizen):

petitions.pm.gov.uk : We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Abolish all faith schools and prohibit the teaching of creationism...

and

"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Abolish all faith schools and prohibit the teaching of creationism and other religious mythology in all UK schools"

It's worth signing both.

This is in the wake of the Vardy Foundation's slowly increasing chain of fundamentalist Christian schools (IN THE UK!!), whose science teachers' teach creationism rather than science, that is, they think the world is 6000 years old, and that most of science is wrong because it contradicts the Bible.

Sign these petition and get everyone else to, too!

My page on Faith Schools explains many of the issues, the contents of the page are:

1. Sectarian Schooling
2. Sectarian schools breed cultural conflict
3. Indoctrination versus Parental discretion
4. Do faith schools provide better education?
5. Fundamentalist Schools
6. The Benefits of Abolishing Sectarian Schools

Tags: children, christianity, creationism, education, fundamentalism, indoctrination, petitions, schooling, science, secularisation, segregation, vardy foundation
Current Location: Germany
Current Mood: annoyed
Listening To: "Krolok" by Wumpscut