RE: Why should religion have any influence on our lives?
October 3, 2014 at 1:13 pm
(This post was last modified: October 3, 2014 at 1:18 pm by Michael B.)
Fidel. Faith schools are slightly under-funded compared with the 'under-funded state comprehensive' (in your words). The faith school must find 10% of capital costs itself. There is simply no preferential funding of faith schools.
Maybe it's worth thinking why those comprehensives (that you probably want everybody to go to) are failing to attract people? The answer surely is not to force people to go to poor schools just to prop them up, but to look at how they can be improved so that they can compete in an open market place of education. Or let them close if they can't compete. If they are suffering from poor funding it's simply because they are not meeting people's needs and so few people want to go there. The faith schools are in the same areas, 'competing' for the same pupils (and associated funding) and winning in an open and fair market.
The answer to dealing with poor failing schools is not to close the successful popular ones! You'll just equalise things by dragging everyone down to the lowest common denominator, and that's a very poor way to run society. If your preferred schools are failing and unpopular then I think you need to reflect on that, and not simply try to force people to use them: that's the worst kind of social engineering.
Maybe it's worth thinking why those comprehensives (that you probably want everybody to go to) are failing to attract people? The answer surely is not to force people to go to poor schools just to prop them up, but to look at how they can be improved so that they can compete in an open market place of education. Or let them close if they can't compete. If they are suffering from poor funding it's simply because they are not meeting people's needs and so few people want to go there. The faith schools are in the same areas, 'competing' for the same pupils (and associated funding) and winning in an open and fair market.
The answer to dealing with poor failing schools is not to close the successful popular ones! You'll just equalise things by dragging everyone down to the lowest common denominator, and that's a very poor way to run society. If your preferred schools are failing and unpopular then I think you need to reflect on that, and not simply try to force people to use them: that's the worst kind of social engineering.
