Tag Archives: faith schools

Oklahoma erodes Separation of Church and State

Posted on by

The Catholic church is a sneaky organization. It functions in the shadows, using the justice system as its cudgel in order to gain ground in their effort to regain dominance over society and our lives. It is all very gradual. For instance, when the government began to fund more playgrounds in schools, they went all the way to the Supreme Court (a known friend of religion these days) and pursued a judgement which declared that they too could receive funds, since playgrounds are not educational material.

Now their move is more overt. In Oklahoma, the effort to fund chartered religious schools have been realized, and now tax dollars are being used to fund these indoctrination centers. Its a clear violation of their constitution, but this didn’t stop their government from approving of such nonsense. Now, the population is equally divided over the issue, which is not usually the case.

To be clear, the debate isn’t whether or not believers can set up their own schools. The government still allows parents to deny a proper education in favor of homeschooling, and plenty of private religious “educational” institutions litter the country. Worse still, these Catholic tricksters even get the government to pay their tuition for students who don’t have access of public schools. No, this is specifically the fact that taxpayers, already inadvertently paying for religious organizations by their refusal to pay taxes, are now forced to shell out money to ensure that an insecure and controlling religion can be forced upon people.

With the Supreme Court stacked the way it is, I wouldn’t be surprised if any pending lawsuits this results on a state level will undoubtedly lead to more favorable decisions by a justice system now completely tainted by religion. It’s ironic that, in a world where there are fewer religious people than ever in the population, they have more power than ever. Our indifference to their actions has cost us dearly, and will continue to do so.

Richard Dawkins documentary on Faith Schools

Posted on by

With 1/3 of all British schools being faith based, Dawkins released this doc examining why they exist, and how their rebirth has forced parents to change their behavior in order to give their kids the best access to education. Faith has about as much place in a state run school as prayer does; which is to say none. If you aren’t British, odds are you haven’t seen this, so enjoy.

Tennessee Faith Schools excel at failure

Posted on by

If you think reading, writing, and mathematics are tools of the devil, you should consider moving to Tennessee. It turns out a loophole in the state constitution allows faith schools to be exempt from mandatory testing, which means kids attending these schools tend to have terrifyingly low reading, writing and math comprehension skills. Parents who send their children to these dummy institutions often find out too late their offspring rank in the lowest percentile in all educational disciplines.

It gets worse; apparently the teachers themselves don’t even need a high school diploma to teach their special brand of nonsense, so there’s no telling what kind of “education” these kids are getting. There aren’t even any official numbers indicating how many children are getting the “shaft” going to these places.

One of the idiots trying to defend the fact faith schools have no government oversight is Rob Shearer, who is part of a private organization that oversees faith based schools in Tennessee (they seem to be doing a great job so far). He thinks that

“…the average home-schooled mom is as qualified to teach her children as the average public school teacher is to teach her class. I’m opposed to any sort of blanket requirement that teachers have to have some level of certification because nobody’s ever demonstrated that it makes any difference in teacher’s effectiveness.”

I hate this kind of bullshit appeal to “motherly wisdom”. No, the average mom is definitely not as qualified to teach when compared to real certified educators. There’s a reason teaching is a job and not a fucking hobby.

If guys like Shearer are so convinced of the effectiveness of their own curriculum, why are they afraid of the possibility of government oversight? All they would be required to do is have their students tested the same way kids all over the country are. Put your fucking money where your mouth is, Robby! I’d be willing to bet money most of the students at these faith schools would perform so terribly the public would have a collective freak-out. Better to be invisible, right?

Faith schools in Britain try to defend their existence

Posted on by

When I was a young child, I was sent to a Catholic primary school. It was the only way my parents could ensure that I went to an English institution. The trade off was every day, the teachers would force us to say a morning prayer, and class time was occasionally devoted to learning about Jesus. It was insanely boring and annoying, but I got over it. I already knew how to read and write before I got to class, as my parents had taken it upon themselves to feed my endless curiosity. It may have been part of the reason their indoctrination had little impact; I had by then already made up my mind about the issue of God, and found it wanting.

There are over 7,000 faith schools in Britain, a huge number for an otherwise secular country. Unlike in the US where private schools aren’t publicly funded, these faith institutions receive 85% of their money from the government, something a full two thirds of their population now opposes. Seeing the writing on the wall, they’ve fought back, telling everyone they are a necessary part of a diverse society. Here is a quote from an article that appeared in The Christian Institute:

Most people would accept that parents have a right to educate their children in an ethos of their choosing, however wrong it may seem to others, as long as the law is observed.

I normally don’t take any serious issue with privately funded religious schools. Parents who want to insulate and mentally stifle their children will do so regardless of whether or not these schools actually exist. At least if there is some government involvement, it means we can establish education criteria for them to follow.

But I’m not buying their stupid notion that schools promote diversity. If you’re incapable of sustaining so many schools without government funding, it demonstrates there really aren’t enough ‘diversified’ individuals willing to pay for it. Why should anyone be forced to give their hard earned tax money to religious institutions? These people already get tax breaks. They don’t need our money too.

British Teachers’ Union fight faith schools

Posted on by

Faith schools are a terrible idea. I’m not only referring to the fact kids who go to these schools are taught a great degree of non-sense, or that a significant proportion of the British population disproves of them. The biggest problem with these schools is they segregate the population along religious lines, and in any multicultural society, this is extremely undesirable.

Britain has over 7000 faith based schools, the vast majority of them being primary. There were relatively few before Tony Blair’s government decided they were a good idea, and since then they’ve been springing up like hotcakes. Blair, the neo-con that he was, probably thought it would be a cheap way to educate kids, since the thinking was church money would pay for at least part of the cost. So far, the state pays roughly 90% of the operation costs. Nice one, Tony.

Now teachers are displeased, and realize the education policies of these schools are preventing kids from becoming properly integrated into society, and they are trying to make sweeping changes which would in effect obliterate the way these schools do business. I’m unsure how much pull they have, but I’m glad there are at least a few people out there who are fighting to end the ability for state funded faith schools to operate.