School patronage

robp

Kiwi in IE wrote: »

Must be because so many of us are heathens! There is no sky fairy giving kids the answers and no mammys praying!

Religion is not absent from New Zealand.
These score figures are a reminder that there are complex factors at play. Squeezing more and more hours of maths and English into children's education is not necessarily going to create better scores. A lot of the people urging for a nation of religion free schools often fail to mention that some of regions with exemplary scores like Finland do include religious instruction. Local demand rather then some centralised imposed laicite ideology should determine reorganisation.

Brian Shanahan

robp wrote: »

A lot of the people urging for a nation of religion free schools often fail to mention that some of regions with exemplary scores like Finland do include religious instruction. Local demand rather then some centralised imposed laicite ideology should determine reorganisation.

Finland wrote:

"The main purpose of religious education is to offer stimuli for the construction and development of students´ own religious view on life by teaching them about their own religion, life and thinking of various religions, and by giving students the readiness to understand different world views.“

This emphatically is not religious instruction, rather a fair and balanced secular religious education. (link here)

Also local demand, whenever queried in this country, is clearly in favour of a secular education, no matter the religious composition of the community.

recedite

And from that same Finnish link, a very simple but sensible idea being implemented;

Since RE is a compulsory subject, pupils who do not belong to any religious group are taught Ethics.

Brian Shanahan

recedite wrote: »

And from that same Finnish link, a very simple but sensible idea being implemented;

From the description I quoted, RE itself is not too far off an ethics course either.

Peregrinus

Which begs the question, if Which begs the question, if Finnish RE is a “fair, balanced secular religious education”, as Brian thinks, why the need to offer an alternative course to non-religious students?

The answer lies in the stated purpose of the Finnish RE syllabus, to stimulate “the construction and development of the student’s own religious views . . . by teaching them about their own religion”. In other words, despite Brian’s perception, I think this is not a secular education about religion; it’s aimed at students who already have their “own religion”, and it encourages them in constructing and developing religious views. In another context, regulars on this board would be denouncing that as indoctrination. And that’s why the Finns recognise a need for a secular alternative for non-religious students.

The truth is that a great many of the countries widely regarded a secular, and sometimes lauded as such on in this forum, do either provide state funding for church schools, or provide non-secular religious education in state schools, or both. And they don’t see that as in any way compromising the secularity of the state. (And, FWIW, if there’s any robust evidence of any international correlation, positive or negative, between the nature of religious education or the amount of time devoted to it, and academic standards or results, I’ve never seen it.)

I think that the particular flavour of atheism which is best represented on this Board, Dawkinsish “new atheism” is - somewhat ironically - a fairly distinctively Anglo-Saxon Protestant product. One of the consequences of this is that they look to Anglo-Saxon secularists as their model for what secularism should be, and in particular with regard to education they look to the US model, in which the state funds only state-established and state-run schools, and religious education is firmly excluded from those schools. (At first and second level, anyway; they don’t seemn to have the same hangups when it comes to funding third level education.) But the truth is that among the countries generally regarded as secular the US is a bit of an outlier; if there’s another secular democracy which takes the US line, I don’t know of it. And it seems to me that, if we’re really keen to explore the idea of a secular state, and what it might mean and how it might be implemented, we have to be prepared to look a bit beyond one outlying example, and stop trying to slot what every other country does into an oversimplified model.

nagirrac

Peregrinus wrote: »

But the truth is that among the countries generally regarded as secular the US is a bit of an outlier; if there’s another secular democracy which takes the US line, I don’t know of it. And it seems to me that, if we’re really keen to explore the idea of a secular state, and what it might mean and how it might be implemented, we have to be prepared to look a bit beyond one outlying example, and stop trying to slot what every other country does into an oversimplified model.

As someone who was educated in Ireland but whose kids are being educated in the US, let me try and give a bit of perspective on what I think is an excellent point above. I would caution strongly against the US model of public or state funded schools, both for academic and ethical reasons.

Essentially in the US you have two school systems, not unlike many countries. The public school system for decades is completely devoid of religious study and for that matter any ethical study to replace it. This has led to significant numbers sending their children to private schools. It is not just a matter of those who can afford it, many people make enormous sacrifices to send their kids to private religious schools. They do this for two reasons, 1) the standard of academic education is much higher, and 2) there is ethical study, even if it is not necessarily the religion of those attending. For example, my daughter is in Catholic school and I would say at least 50% of her classmates are non Catholics and many are non religious.

The issue predominantly in my view comes down to how good the state is at providing education services. For all its warts, given the level of funding my opinion is that Ireland was and is quite good. That is a reflection of the commitment and training of those involved in the profession. Public education in the US is largely dreadful, as academic scores compared to the rest of the world demonstrate. It is a typically administrative heavy bureaucratic mess, with zero accountability at the administration level and the teaching level. For this reason more and more people who are committed to their children's education are choosing private education.

In short, I would not recommend the US model.

Peregrinus

nagirrac wrote: »

. . . In short, I would not recommend the US model.

In fairness, I don’t think many in this forum would advocate following the US model in every respect; just in respect of the rigorous separation between (a) any first- or second-level educational institution that provides religious instruction, and (b) any such institution that receives state funding.

nagirrac

Peregrinus wrote: »

In fairness, I don’t think many in this forum would advocate following the US model in every respect; just in respect of the rigorous separation between (a) any first- or second-level educational institution that provides religious instruction, and (b) any such institution that receives state funding.

The key point though, in my opinion, is what happens when you have such segregation. Remember that in the US (a) is fully parent funded and receives no state funding, while (b) is massively overfunded by the state and results by and large in a crappy education system. This didn't happen overnight, but over many decades of really poor administration, teachers dealing with many kids with little or no ethical instruction from either the home or the school system, and a system that encourages everyone to be average. The main point I am making is that in the US the only schools today, by and large, providing both ethical instruction and competitive (in a global sense) academic instruction are the religious schools.

It works for those that can afford it, or are willing to make the sacrifices to ensure their kids get a good education and are well prepared for life in an increasingly competitive global economy. Unfortunately, more and more are being left behind in a public school system that frankly sucks. The answer is somewhere in between I agree, but is a hard balance to find.

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

The answer lies in the stated purpose of the Finnish RE syllabus, to stimulate “the construction and development of the student’s own religious views . . . .

The more you think about this goal, the better it seems. I reckon the Finns probably had a long debate before coming up with that short sentence.
It does not box the student into any automatic indoctrination process.
It does not assume the student will form the same view as the parent.
It does not assume the student will adopt the ethos of the school.
It encourages the student to look at all religions and none, and assists them in that process.
If more than 3 students in a class wish to receive religious instruction in a particular religion, that can be arranged.

I have some reservations about that last point, but in general its an excellent template for a state school. Perhaps the only workable model, in the sense that everyone could agree to it.
We are going down a slightly different road in Ireland, with various private patronages competing against each other, all paid for by the State.
Perhaps the best interim solution would be to have 50% State schools along the Finnish model, and 50% State-funded private-patronage schools, to provide competition and keep the state schools "on their toes."

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

The more you think about this goal, the better it seems. I reckon the Finns probably had a long debate before coming up with that short sentence.
It does not box the student into any automatic indoctrination process.
It does not assume the student will form the same view as the parent.
It does not assume the student will adopt the ethos of the school.
It encourages the student to look at all religions and none, and assists them in that process.. . .

Actually, I think that very much depends on how you choose to read it.

There’s a trite preconception in which a distinction made between “indoctrination” (student is told what to think) and “education” (student is taught how to think, and encouraged to form his own views). In certain circles RE is stereotypically presumed to be the former, and everything else the latter.

Real life is a bit more nuanced. Have a look at the phrase “the construction and development of the student’s own religious views” and then strike out the word “religious” and imagine that this phrase is being used of education in an unspecified field.

You could interpret it to mean that the student is encouraged to develop independently his own views about the field in question. Or you could interpret it to mean that the student is presented with conventional/established views about the field in question, led to understand them, and encouraged to adopt them as his own. And, in all honesty, I think in most fields addressed in primary and secondary education, the latter is closer to what mostly happens.

And the same could well be true when we take those honeyed words and apply them to a programme of religious education. Those words, used in Finland, could easily be applied to a specifically denominational programme in which student are presented with a particular set of religious perspectives, and encouraged to scrutinise them and adopt them as their own, and in which competing religious perspectives are studied primarily to illuminate the particular perspectives on which the course focusses.

And of course that’s pretty much also what could go on in a programme in which religion is studied from a secular perspective, because the students could still be presented with a particular set of secular values and assumptions about how it’s appropriate to engage with religious ideas, and then encourage to adopt those as their own and use them for the study of religion. The fact that the values and assumptions are not themselves religious doesn’t mean that the students are wholly free to accept or reject them and the teacher is indifferent to whether they do or not. Teachers can be passionate about inculcating values like compassion, tolerance, respect and egalitarianism, or ideas like skepticism, rationialism and the value of critical thinking.

In short, I think this indoctrination/independent thinking dichotomy is perhaps useful to illuminate two ends of a scale, but we need to recognise that real life mostly takes place somewhere in the middle. And there’s nothing inherent in religion which says that religious education has to take place towards one end of the scale, or to secularity which says that secular education tends towards the other end. That’s just a convenient fiction which enables people to denounce religious education, or to advocate secular education, without bothering to build an evidenced case for doing so.

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

there’s nothing inherent in religion which says that religious education has to take place towards one end of the scale, or to secularity which says that secular education tends towards the other end.

"Faith Formation" which is what it's called in an Irish school with a religious ethos, is very definitely at one end of the scale.
A "totally secular education" is very definitely at the other end.

What the Finns have is a compromise model, which allows for considerable latitude and variance depending on the kind of pupils that are in the school.

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

"Faith Formation" which is what it's called in an Irish school with a religious ethos, is very definitely at one end of the scale.
A "totally secular education" is very definitely at the other end.

Well, I await evidence! (Particularly, I should say, for your second claim.)

recedite

It strikes me that you are imagining that some sort of "enforced atheist indoctrination" could go on in a completely secular school....

Peregrinus wrote: »

the students could still be presented with a particular set of secular values and assumptions about how it’s appropriate to engage with religious ideas, and then encourage to adopt those as their own and use them for the study of religion. The fact that the values and assumptions are not themselves religious doesn’t mean that the students are wholly free to accept or reject them...

No such school exists in Ireland, so I can't provide evidence one way or another. I can point to state secular schools in France and USA and say it doesn't happen there. Secularism is the separation of Church and State, it is not a position taken against religion.

I could however envisage a private patron setting up such a school under our current system. The school could actively discriminate in favour of self-declared atheist parents, giving their kids first priority for places. During RE classes (a compulsory part of the state curriculum) they could teach ethics and philosophy while "knocking" religions in general as old superstitions.
Such schools would not be hugely popular, but if they were well run and respected they would attract a certain following among the general public as well as catering to their own people, much as the C. of I. schools do now. The patronage would be private though, and it would be a reaction against the overly religious ethos of other schools. It would not be a model for a state secular school.

Hotblack Desiato

Peregrinus wrote: »

The truth is that a great many of the countries widely regarded a secular, and sometimes lauded as such on in this forum, do either provide state funding for church schools, or provide non-secular religious education in state schools, or both. And they don’t see that as in any way compromising the secularity of the state.

It does grossly compromise the secularity of the state though when it funds privately run religious schools (98% of primary schools are either RC or CoI) almost to the exclusion of any other type, then allows them to integrate religious indoctrination / 'faith formation' or whatever more PR friendly term one wishes to call it, across the entire school day so that it cannot be avoided by children of families of other faiths and none.

I think that the particular flavour of atheism which is best represented on this Board, Dawkinsish “new atheism” is -

:rolleyes: aarrghhh not this again.
I was an atheist for years before I'd ever heard of Prof Dawkins. I'm not alone here in that, either.
I do agree with many things he says but by no means all. I'm not alone in that either.

swampgas

Up to now the focus has been mostly on children from non-Catholic families having to attend Catholic-ethos primary schools.

However there is another side to this too. I know a very skilled, experienced primary school teacher who moved to Ireland from the UK a few years back. She has done quite a few interviews by now, and was surprised that at every single one, there was a question along the lines of "This school has a Catholic ethos. How will you contribute to that?". Now there is no way someone who isn't Catholic, or who knows enough to fake being a Catholic, can answer that. Apart from religion, she is perfectly qualified to do the job.

Effectively the school system discriminates against teachers on religious grounds, simply because so many state-funded schools are allowed to impose a Catholic ethos.

Does anyone know of any moves to challenge that position from the teachers side?

recedite

Teachers can't successfully challenge it because schools are specifically exempt from the relevant equality legislation. Religious school patrons lobbied for that shameful exemption and got it. A teacher could launch an unsuccessful challenge just for the publicity, but they would lose out personally. They would find themselves unemployable in the majority of schools.

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

It strikes me that you are imagining that some sort of "enforced atheist indoctrination" could go on in a completely secular school....

No, no, nothing so sinister. My point is really this:

recedite wrote: »

Secularism is the separation of Church and State, it is not a position taken against religion.

Actually, no. Secularists would generally advocate the separation of church and state, but secularism involves a bit more than that. Secularism is the view that our actions should be based solely on regard to human well-being in the present life, to the exclusion of all considerations drawn from belief in God or in a future afterlife. (The term was coined by George Holyoake, who developed and advocated the philosophy.) It’s not anti-religious in the sense that it doesn’t confront or deny claims about God or an afterlife; it just seeks to sidestep or marginalise them. But it is anti-religious in the sense that it argues against acting on the basis of those beliefs.

There’s nothing inherent in secularism which says that it only applies to the state. Secularism is not the view that the state’s actions should disregard religious claims, but that actions generally should disregard those claims. So a secular individual would disregard those claims in his own life, a secular school would disregard those claims in the education it delivers, and a secular individual would probably argue that a private body like, to pick one at random, the Institute of Chartered Accountants should be secular - i.e. it should disregard religious claims in conducting its activities. (They wouldn’t necessarily seek to compel it by law to act in a secular way - though they might - but they would at a minimum argue that it ought to act in a secular way.) That’s why it is meaningful to talk not just of a secular state but of a secular society, a secular body, a secular individual, a secular attitude, etc.

That doesn’t mean, though, that secularists disapprove of “indoctrination”. They just disapprove of religious indoctrination, not because it’s indoctrination, but because it’s religious.

My daughter attended a secular primary school in Australia. It was state-run. It provided no religious education of any kind, not even comparative religion. It did not organise or support the students in participating in any religious activities. While some state schools in Australia provide facilities for churches to offer voluntary religious instruction on the school premises, this school did not. There wasn’t even a multicultural nativity play.

And yet, if “indoctrination” means “telling students what they should believe”, it certainly did that - constantly, openly, intentionally, explicitly. Every term we were told that “this term we are focussing on the value of respect”, or whatever, and the school would explain what was being done to promote this value and encourage the students to accept and practise it.

Secularists have no problem with this, because the values being inculcated are secular values. They probably wouldn’t even term it “indoctrination”, but as far as I can see that’s pretty much what it is - students are being told what they ought to believe, e.g. that respect matters, that fairness matters, that violence is not a morally acceptable means of resolving disputes, that they should tell the truth, etc, etc. It’s simply not the case, in a typical secular school, that students are introduced to these values in a non-directive way and allowed to determine their own attitudes towards them.

In short, if one end of the scale is “telling students what they ought to believe” and the other is “telling students what other people believe but doing nothing to say or suggest that the students should also believe these things”, then there is plenty of secular education which is very much at the former end of that scale. It’s a comforting myth that secularists tell one another that secular education is non-directive, while religious education is oppressive “indoctrination”, but it’s complete b*lls. A secular education can be just as focussed as a religious education in terms of consciously seeking to form students to a particular belief, telling students what they ought to believe, and requiring them to manifest that belief in their actions and attitudes. Those who think otherwise delude themselves.

In short, secularists don’t object to “indoctrination”; they typically practise it very actively. They just object to religious indoctrination; the inculcation of values which they themselves do not share because they are religious. And, while they obviously have a right to determine their own beliefs and values, and the beliefs and values with which they will raise their children, it’s not so obvious that they have a greater right to do so that anyone else, or a greater claim to state or public support in doing so.

In particular it’s not obvious why - as is sometimes demanded on this board, though I appreciate not by you - the state should provide funding to schools which inculcate secular values, while not providing funding to schools which inculcate religious values. A secular state, surely, should be taking its decisions about schools funding without regard to considerations of religious belief?

Peregrinus

ninja900 wrote: »

I was an atheist for years before I'd ever heard of Prof Dawkins. I'm not alone here in that, either.
I do agree with many things he says but by no means all. I'm not alone in that either.

Sure, and my apologies if you think I'm getting at you. I'm not.

I wasn't meaning to suggest the Dawkins invented "new atheism"; just the he exemplifies it.

And I certainly wasn't meaning to suggest that this board is populated by little mini-me Dawkinses; not at all.

My point is just that there are fashions in irreligion as well as in religion, and "new atheism" is a term which raps up quite a few currently fashionable irreligious stances. One of them is the (to my mind, apparently unthinking) assumption that secularism requires a US-type approach to the funding of education. Other secular countries take other approaches; I have rarely seen this acknowledged, much less discussed, on this board.

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

There wasn’t even a multicultural nativity play.

And was there a multicultural play to celebrate L. Ron Hubbards birthday? Or a little multicultural song and dance routine honouring the original extrusion of his noodly highness, the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

Peregrinus wrote: »

And yet, if “indoctrination” means “telling students what they should believe”, it certainly did that - constantly, openly, intentionally, explicitly. Every term we were told that “this term we are focussing on the value of respect”, or whatever, and the school would explain what was being done to promote this value and encourage the students to accept and practise it.

Secularists have no problem with this, because the values being inculcated are secular values. They probably wouldn’t even term it “indoctrination”, but as far as I can see that’s pretty much what it is - students are being told what they ought to believe, e.g. that respect matters, that fairness matters, that violence is not a morally acceptable means of resolving disputes, that they should tell the truth, etc, etc.

Yes, because these things are the mark of a just and civilised society.
In a secular state, society and its laws are grounded in ethics, not religion. This is why Australians don't cut off the hands of a thief, or stone to death a woman who was raped.

Peregrinus wrote: »

A secular state, surely, should be taking its decisions about schools funding without regard to considerations of religious belief?

Without regard to individual religious belief, yes.
But not without regard for what the school is teaching.

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

Yes, because these things are the mark of a just and civilised society.
In a secular state, society and its laws are grounded in ethics, not religion. This is why Australians don't cut off the hands of a thief, or stone to death a woman who was raped.

You're making a completely bogus distinction between ethics and religion there, recedite, treating them as two mutually exclusive fields. They are, as you know, nothing of the kind. Some people's ethical thinking is influenced by religious considerations; some people's ethical thinking is not, and there is rather more overlap among than difference between the ethical positions of the two groups. You know this already.

And it seems to me that this red herring is an attempt to distract from the point I'm making; secular education typically involves just as much indoctrination (telling students what beliefs and values them must hold) as religious education, and an objection to religious education on the basis that it is "indoctrination" just doesn't stand up when critically scrutinise.

recedite wrote: »

Without regard to individual religious belief, yes.
But not without regard for what the school is teaching.

Why? If individual are free to adopt and express religious beliefs and the state should disregard the fact that they do so, why should they not be free to form associations and adopt and express religious beliefs, and which enjoy the same right to parity of esteem that secular and religious individuals enjoy? If you're going to argue that secular schools should be privileged over religious schools as regards state funding, that seems to me fairly clearly to privilege secular people over religious people. You need to say why they should enjoy this privilege, rather than merely asserting that they should. And you need to produce a fairly cogent argument as to why a secular state should not be required to disregard the religious character, or lack of same, of a communal institution like a school in exactly the same way that it is required the disregard the religious character, or lack thereof, of the individual citizen.

recedite

If it makes you feel better, I'll agree that secularists are happy enough with some kinds of indoctrination but not religious indoctrination.
If indoctrination is a kind of education in which the rules are presented to the pupil in the form of a doctrine that must be accepted, then it can only be used where all of society has accepted the doctrine. For example that rape is a bad thing. The rapist should be punished, not the rape victim.

On the question of the State and it's attitude to a communal institution as opposed to its attitude to an individual; It would not be correct for the State to directly fund a particular church, or a school which was being used to promote a particular religion. We even have an Article in the Constitution saying the state will not "endow" any particular religion.

A religion could however own and operate a state funded school, provided it did not employ any religious indoctrination at the school. In practice this would be unusual and quite pointless from the point of view of the religion.

Which brings us to the question of how it is that most of our schools are in fact both state funded and also allowed to practice religious indoctrination?
The answer is that most of the population have been happy enough with this hypocrisy up till now, and if necessary the legal weasels will justify it on the basis that if the State endows all religions equally, it does not endow any particular religion.
As an aside to this, I was watching the TV news last week and there was a a tragedy in Leicester in which people were killed in a house fire. According to the report they had just finished training at the mosque there, and were to be teachers at a proposed new secondary school in north Dublin. They had only just finished learning the Koran off by heart. Now maybe I am cynical, but I suspect that the average Irish taxpayer is not going to be too happy when this school opens and he/she is paying the salaries/upkeep for it.

robindch

recedite wrote: »

They had only just finished learning the Koran off by heart.

A friend of mine in the Middle East mentioned that this practice is in decline in the region since it became widely known that allah would penalize a believer for forgetting part of the koran more than he would benefit the believer for memorizing it in the first place.

<facepalm>Religious logic</facepalm>

lazygal

What's a multicultural nativity play anyway ?

expectationlost

all very interesting Peregrinus but whats it got to do with Ireland http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057034189 < thread

clairefontaine

lazygal wrote: »

What's a multicultural nativity play anyway ?

Nativity plays are by their nature multi cultural. You have little white kids playing the roles of Jews and Palestinians. :P

clairefontaine

nagirrac wrote: »

As someone who was educated in Ireland but whose kids are being educated in the US, let me try and give a bit of perspective on what I think is an excellent point above. I would caution strongly against the US model of public or state funded schools, both for academic and ethical reasons.

Essentially in the US you have two school systems, not unlike many countries. The public school system for decades is completely devoid of religious study and for that matter any ethical study to replace it. This has led to significant numbers sending their children to private schools. It is not just a matter of those who can afford it, many people make enormous sacrifices to send their kids to private religious schools. They do this for two reasons, 1) the standard of academic education is much higher, and 2) there is ethical study, even if it is not necessarily the religion of those attending. For example, my daughter is in Catholic school and I would say at least 50% of her classmates are non Catholics and many are non religious.

The issue predominantly in my view comes down to how good the state is at providing education services. For all its warts, given the level of funding my opinion is that Ireland was and is quite good. That is a reflection of the commitment and training of those involved in the profession. Public education in the US is largely dreadful, as academic scores compared to the rest of the world demonstrate. It is a typically administrative heavy bureaucratic mess, with zero accountability at the administration level and the teaching level. For this reason more and more people who are committed to their children's education are choosing private education.

In short, I would not recommend the US model.

This is a broad and misleading generalisation. It varies from school district to school district and I know many many Catholics who do not send their kids to Catholic school because of their corruption and scandals. The only Catholic schools I would even consider would be Jesuit because they are the only order who teach you to doubt.

They do allow for religious exemptions, like th JWs sr exempt from saying the pledge of allegiance. Personally I prefer the French model, which have purely secularised their public schools. No exemptions.

You couldn't put a gun to my head to put my son back in an Irish primary school frankly.

nagirrac

clairefontaine wrote: »

This is a broad and misleading generalisation. It varies from school district to school district and I know many many Catholics who do not send their kids to Catholic school because of their corruption and scandals. Personally I prefer the French model, which have purely secularised their public schools. No exemptions.

How is it misleading?
Of course the quality of public schools varies from district to district in the USA, it is a direct reflection of the relative affluence of the cities or suburbs in the district. Maybe you misunderstood my point or I didn't explain it well enough, but what I am saying is that there is a right way and a wrong way to do secular public education and the USA, in my opinion, is doing it the wrong way.

At the end of the day what parents should care most about is the quality of the academic teaching their kids are receiving. In all of the studies I have seen Ireland consistently ranks highly in this regard. On average Ireland ranks in the top 10 countries in the developed world and is holding its position, a remarkable statistic given the resources the other countries in the top 10 have (South Korea, Germany, Canada, etc.). The USA, for all its wealth, is in the mid teens and slipping further down yearly, and France, that bastion of secular education, is now outside the top 20. Of course there are multiple reasons for this and it is a very complicated subject, but the bottom line is that in the transition to a "secular" school system in the USA, all sense of accountability for the quality of education seems to have been lost.

In my opinion the best way to look at it is based on value, what is the cost of education and what quality is being delivered? The average spent per pupil in the USA is $10K per year. It costs me less to send my child to a private school! This is simply insane given the much greater numbers attending public schools and the economies of scale they should be benefitting form. The reasons are simple; the public school system is overloaded with multiple levels of administration, and there is no accountability at any level (sadly much like other areas of government). The private schools simply do a much better job because they have an education comes first ethos and hold people accountable (like firing people who are not performing for example, something almost unknown in the public school system).

Sorry for the rant but it truly annoys me to hear people denigrate the Irish school system. Given the resources available, it is in my opinion of a very high standard and extreme care should be used in redesigning it. I think if people take a step back and compare the history of the education system in Ireland with other government "services", it may result in some sober reflection.

clairefontaine

nagirrac wrote: »

How is it misleading?
Of course the quality of public schools varies from district to district in the USA, it is a direct refection of the relative affluence of the cities or suburbs in the district. Maybe you misunderstood my point or I didn't explain it well enough, but what I am saying is that there is a right way and a wrong way to do secular public education and the USA, in my opinion, is doing it the wrong way.

At the end of the day what parents should care most about is the quality of the academic teaching their kids are receiving. In all of the studies I have seen Ireland consistently rants highly in this regard. On average Ireland ranks in the top 10 countries in the developed world and is holding its position, a remarkable statistic given the resources the other countries in the top 10 have (South Korea, Germany, Canada, etc.). The USA, for all its wealth, is in the mid teens and slipping further down yearly, and France, that bastion of secular education, is now outside the top 20. Of course there are multiple reasons for this and it is a very complicated subject, but the bottom line is that in the transition to a "secular" school system in the USA, all sense of accountability for the quality of education seems to have been lost.

In my opinion the best way to look at it is based on value, what is the cost of education and what quality is being delivered? The average spent per pupil in the USA is $10K per year. It costs me less to send my child to a private school! This is simply insane given the much greater numbers attending public schools and the economies of scale they should be benefitting form. The reasons are simple; the public school system is overloaded with administration, and there is no accountability at any level (sadly much like other areas of government). The private schools simply do a much better job because they have an education comes first ethos and hold people accountable (like firing people who are not performing for example, something almost unknown in the public school system).

Sorry for the rant but it truly annoys me to hear people denigrate the Irish school system. Given the resources available, it is in my opinion of a very high standard and extreme care should be used in redesigning it. I think if people take a step back and compare the history of the education system in Ireland with other government "services", it may result in some sober reflection.

The American schools spend way way way too much on sports. It's ridiculous. Plus we have inner city ghetto ****holes in NYC and Chicago, not to mention kids who don't know English bringing down the stats.

So my friend taught at a Catholic school. You know they had their baby showers in the cafeteria at lunch time and the baby daddies would pick them up after school? Ethos. LOL.

Private schools are at 12 k a year. Heck my private school is now 25k a year.

Additionally, we have no accurate way of measuring things, even state to nation, let alone state to the international platform. The standards are all relative.

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

If it makes you feel better, I'll agree that secularists are happy enough with some kinds of indoctrination but not religious indoctrination.

I get that. And I have no problem with it - so far as the secularists' own kids are concerned.

But I think we need to construct a further argument if we advocate that

(a) the state should provide/support/fund schools which “indoctrinate” with values and attitudes that secularists like and share; but

(b) not schools which “indoctrinate” with values and attitudes which secularists do not like or share.

On the face if it, this looks like a demand for secularist privilege. I’m not saying that we couldn’t construct an argument to justify it, but the argument does need to be constructed. “Secularists like it” is not enough.

recedite wrote: »

If indoctrination is a kind of education in which the rules are presented to the pupil in the form of a doctrine that must be accepted, then it can only be used where all of society has accepted the doctrine.

I think I see two problems with this.

First, there’s practically nothing in the way of values and attitudes which all of society accepts. Every society has its racists, its nutters, its misogynists, its bigots, its fascists. They all reject values and attitudes that you and I and practically everybody we know hold to be fundamental and which in my view schools should definitely be inclulcating. I think a workable version of this approach would have to refer to values and attitudes which are accepted overwhelmingly, or by a broad consensus, or something of the kind.

But that gives rise to the second problem; it would follow that a society which was overwhelmingly religious would be justified in supporting schools which inculcated religious values and attitudes, and in not supporting schools which inculcated values and attitudes inconsistent with the dominant relgion, whether those of a competing religion, or those of a secular philosophy.

Your argument here really boils down to saying that the state can and should foster conformity in matters of belief by seeking to support the inculcation of the already-dominant beliefs. I don’t find it a very attractive argument, and it’s certainly not a secular argument. (It will in effect tend towards a secular outcome, in a society which is already overwhelmingly secular, but that’s not the same thing. And not, I think, what you want in any event.)

recedite wrote: »

On the question of the State and it's attitude to a communal institution as opposed to its attitude to an individual; It would not be correct for the State to directly fund a particular church, or a school which was being used to promote a particular religion. We even have an Article in the Constitution saying the state will not "endow" any particular religion . . . Which brings us to the question of how it is that most of our schools are in fact both state funded and also allowed to practice religious indoctrination?

The answer is that most of the population have been happy enough with this hypocrisy up till now, and if necessary the legal weasels will justify it on the basis that if the State endows all religions equally, it does not endow any particular religion.

I confess I’m a little impatient at this particular trope, which is all too common on this board. It’s incredibly lazy, and not a little smug and arrogant. It works like this.

1. The Constitution forbids the endowment of religion.

2. Schools under religious managements receive state funding.

3. This is hypocrisy. An argument is rarely articulated as to why this is hypocrisy; it’s treated a self-evident.

The reason I call this “incredibly lazy” is that, to take this position, you have either not notice, or be willing to overlook, the fact that secular states routinely fund religious schools, including many of the secular states that are routinely held up as examples on this very board - France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Australia, New Zealand . . . It’s clearly not self-evident that secularity, or the separation of church and state, is inconsistent with public funding of religious schools; the two commonly go hand-in-hand. I think a secularist who argues that secularity requires no public funding for church schools has to be willing at least to acknowledge that other secularist views are possible and are widely held, and to construct an argument against them. Dismissing them as “hypocrisy” doesn’t cut it.

And the reason I say it’s a little smug and arrogant is that those who put forward this view seem to think it unnecessary to engage with what the Constitution actually says about this, how the various constitutional provisions which touch on this subject relate to one another (yes, Virginia, there is more than one relevant provision), how they have been interpreted and applied. They almost give the impression of thinking that they’re the first people to notice that there might be a tension between the Irish Constitutional prohibition on endowment of religion and the public funding of religious schools. They are wholly uninterested in exploring what others have said about that tension, how it has been worked out in the courts, what justifications have been advanced for the arrangements. They give the impression, to be honest, of being largely unaware that anyone other than themselves has ever noticed this issue, and certainly of being uninterested in what anyone other than themselves has thought or said about it.

recedite wrote: »

As an aside to this, I was watching the TV news last week and there was a a tragedy in Leicester in which people were killed in a house fire. According to the report they had just finished training at the mosque there, and were to be teachers at a proposed new secondary school in north Dublin. They had only just finished learning the Koran off by heart. Now maybe I am cynical, but I suspect that the average Irish taxpayer is not going to be too happy when this school opens and he/she is paying the salaries/upkeep for it.

Why? Is there any suggestion that these people’s only qualification to teach in an Irish school would be that they have memorised the Koran? Or are you suggesting that somebody who is fully professionally qualified to teach should be excluded from the profession if they have also memorised the Koran? Surely a secular state should be indifferent to the question of whether a citizen memorises the Koran or not? Exlcuding someone from public employment because they have memorised the Koran is not secularity; it’s bigotry.

recedite

I don't know what qualifications the teachers in Islamic education need, so I won't comment on that matter.

Peregrinus wrote: »

I think a workable version of this approach would have to refer to values and attitudes which are accepted overwhelmingly, or by a broad consensus, or something of the kind.

Agreed. And you gave some examples yourself that were being applied in a secular Australian school, such as;

Peregrinus wrote: »

e.g. that respect matters, that fairness matters, that violence is not a morally acceptable means of resolving disputes, that they should tell the truth, etc, etc.

Peregrinus wrote: »

But that gives rise to the second problem; it would follow that a society which was overwhelmingly religious would be justified in supporting schools which inculcated religious values and attitudes, and in not supporting schools which inculcated values and attitudes inconsistent with the dominant relgion, whether those of a competing religion, or those of a secular philosophy.
Your argument here really boils down to saying that the state can and should foster conformity in matters of belief by seeking to support the inculcation of the already-dominant beliefs.

Not really. Look at it this way; Even if 100% of a population believed in a particular god, it would not be appropriate to teach kids in a State school that the god existed as a matter of fact. The teachers would know it was a matter of belief only, and so they should teach it as such. As they would teach a popular but unproven hypothesis. So they would not be making the kids "conform" to the belief.

The basic ideas such as fairness and respect are not beliefs as such. I accept your point that there may be psychopaths and/or nihilists who might not feel morally or ethically bound by the basic ideas. But these ideas have been around for longer than humanity itself, and way before any religion. They are a means by which our primate ancestors were able to live together in a co-operative society. The religious way of thinking that says that all basic ethics derive from some god-given law/morality /set of commandments only distorts the reality that the realm of ethics exists beyond the various belief systems. Hence it is called secular ethics.