Dear Ed Balls,
You’re not on a good run at the moment, are you? Only a few days ago I sent you a letter about your patent contradictions regarding child safety, and today you pin your name to proposals to increase the number of faith schools in the country.
In this day and age, when religious and ethnic divisions in communities cause riots, promote misunderstanding, increase tension and cause the police and local people immeasurable difficulties, do you really think we need to make things worse? Faith schools contribute to segregation - how anyone can disagree with this statement is beyond me. We need to get different groups within the same towns and cities working alongside each other, going to school together, going to the same places and shops etc, and this isn’t going to happen if you draw a clear religious line between them.
I couldn’t care less which religious group it is that wants more faith schools. Obviously for historical reasons, the majority of faith schools are Christian, but even though England is still technically a Christian country (probably moving towards secular these days) I am still vehemently against rejecting people from a school on the basis of their beliefs. Education is about precisely that - educating people. It’s not just about Science and Maths and French, but also about showing children what the world is really like. What is the point of keeping children in a ‘bubble’ when they are at school, only to walk outside and see what a diverse culture we live in. The secular nature of schooling coupled with respect for every religious group is fundamental to promoting good relations in every community around the country. David Cameron says that our society is ‘broken’ and faith schools hinder efforts to fix it, which is why I’m appalled that he supports faith schools as well.
Yours in anger,
A.Tory
6 responses so far ↓
Rnger1640 // September 11, 2007 at 9:32 pm
The Labour party (they are not a party in government they are a party drunk on power and idealism) are a deluded disgrace.
Large sections of this country have for years not been a safe place for the majority of the population.
We have huge chunks of our cities that are no go areas for anyone white, other areas that are no go areas for Christians, then there are huge areas where decent people can’t walk the streets day or night because of crime and druggies and all thanks to Labour and the failed ideology of multiculturalism!
Michael W stone BA FBIS // September 19, 2007 at 9:37 am
Faith schools may indeed “divide” but that is precisely what rational parents want.
Any parent in his or her right senses will do everything possible to “divide” his kids from those whose presence is likely to impede their education, and unite them with those who won’t. This is the “bubble” that matters. It line of division may in some instances coincide with religious or even (whisper this) racial ones, but that ain’t the point. Children don’t go to school to mix with children of other backgrounds, or even particularly with those of their own background. Sitting next to other children, of any race or religion, is merely a side-effect of the fact that there aren’t enough teachers to give each child one to him/herself.
Kids attend school (when they can’t be taught at home) to get a good set of academic qualifications which will give them a good grounding for work or college, and faith schools are prospering because they are good at that. Non-sectarian ones which produce the same result would be just as acceptable, but there don’t seem to be enough of them. Until there are, the more faith schools the better.
Letters From A Tory // September 19, 2007 at 10:01 am
“Children don’t go to school to mix with children of other backgrounds, or even particularly with those of their own background.”
I think that is where we disagree. Going to school isn’t just about Maths, French, English, etc. Children learn a lot about the world around them from the children they meet and interact with. Keeping children sheltered from the varied society that we live in is a bad thing, in my opinion.
Michael W stone BA FBIS // September 19, 2007 at 10:39 am
Maths, English etc may or may not be the only thing, but they come first by a very wide margin. Nothing wrong with social mixing per se, but on no account must it be permitted to interfere with the schools’ real function - and in all too many state schools it does, or is certainly perceived as so doing.
People can get on quite well in life without straying beyond a quite narrow social mix. I doubt if many Etonians have ever met a coal miner, but it doesn’t seem to stop them prospering. Sir Peter Vardy’s social world may be quite narrow but he got to be a millionaire in spite (or because?) of it. I’m not saying that exposure to a wider social mix has no value, but to call it essential in the sense that literacy, numeracy etc are essential is, if you’ll forgive me, just sentimental nonsense.
Any non-religious schools which did as well as the faith ones on the academic front would, I suspect, soon become just as oversubscribed. For the parents, religious “segregation” is a means to the academic end, not, in most cases, an objective in itself. Even schools run by the British Humanist Association might be popular, if that body is as middle class as I suspect it to be. But at the moment, with so few Grammar Schools left, and Public Schools getting ever more expensive, faith ones seem to be “the only game in town” for many middle class parents. Until that changes, Floreat St Ethelburga’s.
Letters From A Tory // September 19, 2007 at 11:50 am
I take your point that literacy and numeracy etc are the priority, but the social cost of segregated communities to my mind is extremely important to the future of this country.
I’m not saying that children will fail in life should they not mix with other social/ethnic/religious groups, but I think society benefits if they mix more. Segregation is tearing our society apart as faith schools and other institutions drive wedges between groups of people living in the same area, and I think that is something we must prevent at all costs.
Michael W stone BA FBIS // September 19, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Sorry, I don’t follow.
Can you find a single instance of any problems arising due to faith schools “driving wedges between people living in the same area”?
If a community is segregated, eg Northern Ireland or Moslem districts of major cities, then of course its schools (of whatever kind) will be so as well; but the schools reflect the community; they do not shape it in any noticeable way, and offhand I can’t think of a single instance where they ever have. Can you?
And I don’t like that “at all costs” bit. The moment you start allowing that other considerations can take priority over a school’s academic performance, you are handing it (and whatever authority runs it) a perfect alibi for academic failures. In that event, it will go downhill, sure as death and taxes - whereupon smart parents will turn to a private school or faith school or whatever, whose standards do measure up.
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