Faith superstition schools don’t increase educational standards:
Academics at the London School of Economics and the Institute of Education, both part of the University of London, found no proof that providing parents with the choice of a religious secondary school either raised results or helped drive up standards in other local schools.
The research suggests that government policies to promote a market in education – by promising parents a choice of school in the belief that the competition for children will improve standards – only create a more socially fragmented system.
(via Pagan Prattle)
So what’s the answer – a state imposed top down “secular” system (by which I am assuming a system that excludes religious belief rather than one which allows all forms of belief) that every parent is compelled to use? If the system is to reflect society shouldn’t it reflect the diversity of that society – humanist, atheist, hindu, christian, muslim, etc?
So what’s the answer – a state imposed top down “secular” system (by which I am assuming a system that excludes religious belief rather than one which allows all forms of belief) that every parent is compelled to use?
I don’t tihnk there should be any state-funded superstition schools. I do think that religious education should be a compulsory subject in all state-funded schools, and its function should be to innoculate people against religious belief.
If the system is to reflect society shouldn’t it reflect the diversity of that society – humanist, atheist, hindu, christian, muslim, etc?
Who says schools should “reflect society”? If most people don’t know calculus, does that mean most schools shouldn’t teach calculus? If most people have never heard of plate tectonics, should that be ignored in schools?
I’m afraid we will have to disagree on the illiberal view of other people’s belief that you are expressing here. Just because you see it as superstition doesn’t mean you have the right to impose your view on everyone else (and the same would work the other way too – just as you would want a materialist view of the universe taught to your kids so another person would want a different way. What is to say your way is better?)
Of course schools should reflect society – the various Education Acts and related case law even reflect that. That doesn’t mean that they reflect everything about society. The difference between plate tectonics and religion is that those who claim a religious belief tend to see it as a central aspect of how they see the world, rather than just a bit of knowledge to be packed away.
I’m not advocating anything other than genuine secularism, which isn’t the absence of religion, but the liberty to express any belief or opinion, rather than the oppression of imposing a belief on other people by the state.