Atheist Priority

Zamboni

I do not like the FCFS policy that Educate Together uses because it adversely affects my child born at a certain part of the year.
But I respect it their choice of system which is best of a bad bunch.
And I would certainly not like to see ET positively discriminate for non religious pupils over religious pupils. Stooping to their levels etcetera etcetera.

(However I would like it if Galvasean emailed his suggestion to Paul Rowe:D)

Peregrinus

Bannasidhe wrote: »

I'm going to need some proof to back up that statement since my understanding is that under Dept. of Education rules it it impossible to have a secular school in Ireland unless it is completely private and receives no State funding.

Is there a law which prevents an entirely secular group from seeking to become patron of its own entirely secular school, or which prevents the Department from approving such an application, or is it simply the case that no entirely secular group has ever sought to become patron of an entirely secular school?

Put it this way; if it would not be illegal for ET to adopt the admission policy that the OP wants - and nobody has suggested that it would be illegal, and I myself am not aware of any law which would be infringed - then it would not not illegal for some other patron to adopt it.

In other words, people are free to establish such school, or to seek them. I just don't see that ET has a special obligation to provide them.

Hotblack Desiato

Rev Hellfire wrote: »

Such an action would only further validate the religious stance taken by the other schools.

Great. so we get to stick to a principle while her kid continues to lose out.

Hotblack Desiato

mikhail wrote: »

That's not true. Kids who start their formal education later catch up quickly and show no adverse effects later on. I'd quote the source study, but I read it some years ago and can't put my finger to it.

Allow me to trump your study you can't put your finger on, with real world experience

My daughter is almost 5, she started school last Sept and frankly it doesn't do enough to stimulate her. Her homework is colouring in. The school library books given to junior infants are picture books with no words - at home she's already reading. Keeping her back another year would just have made things even worse. What's the point of sending a child to school to 'learn' stuff they were doing 18 months or 2 years ago at home?

Bannasidhe

Peregrinus wrote: »

Is there a law which prevents an entirely secular group from seeking to become patron of its own entirely secular school, or which prevents the Department from approving such an application, or is it simply the case that no entirely secular group has ever sought to become patron of an entirely secular school?

Put it this way; if it would not be illegal for ET to adopt the admission policy that the OP wants - and nobody has suggested that it would be illegal, and I myself am not aware of any law which would be infringed - then it would not not illegal for some other patron to adopt it.

In other words, people are free to establish such school, or to seek them. I just don't see that ET has a special obligation to provide them.

My understanding, and I am open to correction, is that the State will not fund any school which does not teach religion. Schools may promote the ethos of one particular religion (as the majority do) or be multi-denominational but is all cases religion must form part of the curriculum.

If I am correct it is therefore possible to have (State funded) a technically 'secular' school that gives equal weighting to all religions but impossible to have a'secular' school which teaches no religion but leaves that to the parents to organise outside of school hours.

I am the product of a school that taught no religion, that is not to say we did not learn about religion but this was done through the medium of other subjects such as History/Civics/Rhetoric/Philosophy/Political Theory (to understand the Reformation/Inquisition we had to understand the motivations of the various sides but at no point were statements made as to one side being 'right'/'wrong' - just 'this is what xxxx believed' - in much the same way as we learned about Fascism/Communism/Laissez Faire/Nationalism/Imperialism etc - as political belief systems held by particular people/governments which led to certain actions) but it was completely privately funded (cost my parents a fortune) - we did have pupils from diverse religious backgrounds and none and there were some very lively discussions (the school encouraged debate/discussion) but they always remained respectful - anyone who claimed their particular religion was the 'only true' automatically lost the debate.

My son was in the UK system until he was 9 and the schools he attended there (in London and Sheffield) we bog standard Local Authority funded primary schools with pupils draw from a wide demographic. They gave equal weighting to all religions and taught about them in terms of 'this is what Muslims believe/this is what Catholics believe/this is what Jews believe' - at no point did anyone state which was 'right'/'wrong'.

Neither schools displayed any religious iconography but my son's school did get the younger kids to do drawings for Diwali/Eid/Christmas/Hanukkah etc.

Both models are 'secular' - but only one of these can receive State funding in Ireland.

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

Put it this way; if it would not be illegal for ET to adopt the admission policy that the OP wants - and nobody has suggested that it would be illegal, and I myself am not aware of any law which would be infringed - then it would not not illegal for some other patron to adopt it.
In other words, people are free to establish such school, or to seek them. I just don't see that ET has a special obligation to provide them.

ET is a multi-denominational school, and its ethos is not to discriminate.
Denominational schools can and do discriminate against "others".

It would presumably be open to a non-denominational school to discriminate against kids of any religious "denomination", in the unlikely event that they wished to. But the state only funds the other two types. There is no law against non-denominational schools, just no provision of funding for them.

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

ET is a multi-denominational school, and its ethos is not to discriminate.
Denominational schools can and do discriminate against "others".

It would presumably be open to a non-denominational school to discriminate against kids of any religious "denomination", in the unlikely event that they wished to. But the state only funds the other two types. There is no law against non-denominational schools, just no provision of funding for them.

But is that simply because none have ever applied for funding?

PU]ut it this way; if an ET school were to adopt the admission criteria that the OP advocates - priority for non-religious children - would that result it its losing state funding? And, if we think it would, why exactly? What law would require this?

expectationlost

some general articles in the herald about atheists in schools and the lack of choice http://www.herald.ie/lifestyle/why-we-chose-not-to-send-our-children-to-religious-schools-3302468.html

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

if an ET school were to adopt the admission criteria that the OP advocates - priority for non-religious children - would that result it its losing state funding?

Short answer; I don't know.

Longer answer; It would have to change its multi-denominational ethos, and therefore would no longer be an ET school. It would have to declare as non-denominational.
The only official definitions I can find for the terminology are here.
They are not great distinctions or definitions IMO, because there is a lot of potential overlap;
denominational= "Refers to school managed by religious bodies"
multi-denominational= "Refers to schools which embraces multi-belief ethos"
non-denominational= "Refers to secular schools which are not aligned to any religion"

Supposing ET changed its ethos first, from the current multi-denominational "embracing religion" (apparently) to a pro-atheist ethos.
It would still be required to teach religion as a subject; 2.5 hrs a week minimum for a primary school. The only way to square these two would, I think, be to teach religion with a slant that religion is bull$hit during the religion class. Would this be allowed? An interesting question.

Article 42.3 of the constitution states;

The State shall, however, as guardian of the common good, require in view of actual conditions that the children receive a certain minimum education, moral, intellectual and social.

IMO the big problem here is that the Dept. of Education seem to have substituted the word religious for the word moral in interpreting the Constitution, when they were creating the National Curriculum.
What they should have done, is to declare a minimum of 2.5hrs of moral education. The classes in this hypothetical school could then be renamed "ethics, philosophy and religion" and the time put to good, constructive use, rather than simply negativity and religion bashing.
It would also make the school a lot more attractive to parents, and therefore it could very well be a viable patronage model.

Hotblack Desiato

+1 to your post but ET schools are already attractive to parents - most of them are heavily oversubscribed.

Unfortunately it is very difficult to get DoE support for such a school in an established suburb. It seems that only parents in newly built areas are going to be given a chance of having a choice. Ruairi is still granting patronage to religious schools, Ireland has far too many religious schools already, a line in the sand needs to be drawn.

expectationlost

Peregrinus wrote: »

Is there a law which prevents an entirely secular group from seeking to become patron of its own entirely secular school, or which prevents the Department from approving such an application, or is it simply the case that no entirely secular group has ever sought to become patron of an entirely secular school?

disagree with Bannasidhe about being laws preventing it but ultimately its because they've been actively hindered in doing so state and church officials

Peregrinus

expectationlost wrote: »

disagree with Bannasidhe about being laws preventing it but ultimately its
because they've been actively hindered in doing so.

Not that I'm contradicting you, but how exactly have secular groups been hindered from applying to become patrons of schools in the national school system?

expectationlost

Peregrinus wrote: »

Not that I'm contradicting you, but how exactly have secular groups been hindered from applying to become patrons of schools in the national school system?

Peregrinus are you irish? ps i'll have to find the link im thinking of read the second two of these document for your education to start off http://www.educatetogether.ie/about/history

In 1987 the Government introduced a new practice under which
no capital grants are given to multi-denominational schools in their early years until they have
proved viability. This means that at the point at which the schools are at their most vulnerable
and indeed when the demands for accommodation etc. are at their greatest, the cost of
providing such accommodation falls entirely on the local parents. These conditions have not
been imposed on Catholic or Protestant schools and it may be necessary to mount a
constitutional challenge should another multi-denominational school have difficulty in getting
official recognition.

you have to remeber historically not only did the church want to educate every child, it thought it wrong for anyone else to teach children, this is the attitude you have to aware of not the lack of effort by secular people peregrinus

of course peregrinus gives the lie that its up to random parents to set up schools that some how mass educated is not the job of government, .... if that is not the job of government i don't why we have a government at all.

ShooterSF

Peregrinus wrote: »

Not that I'm contradicting you, but how exactly have secular groups been hindered from applying to become patrons of schools in the national school system?

Why would a secular group give priority to anyone? The whole idea of secularity is to treat everyone the same.

Can an atheist group setup a public school favouring atheists and teach about religion only when discussing myths of different cultures and times?

Peregrinus

expectationlost wrote: »

Peregrinus are you irish?

Yes, but I’ve been living in Australia for the past ten years.

expectationlost wrote: »

you have to remeber historically not only did the church want to educate every child it thought it wrong for anyone else to teach children, this is the attitude you have to aware of not the lac of effort by secular people peregrinus

I’m not intending to criticize anyone for “lack of effort”. Where I’m coming from is that, in this thread, we have someone calling for schools which will give priority to non-religious children, in the way that e.g. Catholic schools give priority to Catholic children, etc. Various people have suggested that such a school would be illegal, or at any rate that it could not be included in the national school system, while you have suggested that, even if such a school were theoretically possible, it has been “actively hindered”.

As far as I know there is no law against such a school. And, while I’m entirely willing to believe that such a school would be discouraged by attitudes within the Dept of Education and by the vested interests of the Catholic church, I’m curious to know if such a thing has ever actually happened.

Educate Together had to work long and hard against official reluctance and church opposition to get to the point where they are today, so I’m convinced that anyone seeking to set up more assertively non-religious schools, such as the one the OP would like, would face a similar struggle. My question is simply this; has there been any attempt, which met with discouragement or opposition, or has no-one made the attempt?

expectationlost wrote: »

of course peregrinus gives the lie that its up to random parents to set up schools that some how mass educated is not the job of government, .... if that is not the job of government i don't why we have a government at all.

Tell that to Educate Together!

You may take the view that it should be the job of the state to esatablish schools, but it’s hardly a “lie” to recognize that the system for doing so in Ireland gives a considerable advantage to prospective school patrons who are willing to organise and to raise funds. You can complain about this, but you can also take advantage of it, and it may be that the dominance of the churches in Irish education is due to the fact that they have long been willing to take advantage of it.

Peregrinus

ShooterSF wrote: »

Why would a secular group give priority to anyone? The whole idea of secularity is to treat everyone the same.

Well, no, the point of secularism is to conduct human affairs without regard to supernatural considerations, or considerations of an afterlife.

When it comes to education, it seems to me that there are a couple of ways in which you could apply this principle.

One is to entirely disregard a student’s religious belief, or lack of it, when making admission decisions. This is of course the policy of Educate Together, but it is not the policy argued for in the OP.

Another is to teach children that they themselves ought to disregard supernatural considerations when making decisions - i.e. teach them to be non-religious or atheist. That is not what ET does, but if a school did do that I think it could fairly be described as secular.

And someone running such a school might seek to bring together a community of students and families who were themselves sympathetic to, and supportive of, that position, and so might give preference to students from atheist or non-religious backgrounds, in much the way that Catholic schools favour Catholic children.

ShooterSF wrote: »

Can an atheist group setup a public school favouring atheists and teach about religion only when discussing myths of different cultures and times?

As far as I know, that would not be illegal - as in, if there were a political willingness to accommodate such a school in the national school system, no legal change would be needed to make it possible. But if anyone else knows better I’d be glad to hear about it.

expectationlost

Peregrinus wrote: »

I’m not intending to criticize anyone for “lack of effort”. Where I’m coming from is that, in this thread, we have someone calling for schools which will give priority to non-religious children, in the way that e.g. Catholic schools give priority to Catholic children, etc. Various people have suggested that such a school would be illegal, or at any rate that it could not be included in the national school system, while you have suggested that, even if such a school were theoretically possible, it has been “actively hindered”.

As far as I know there is no law against such a school. And, while I’m entirely willing to believe that such a school would be discouraged by attitudes within the Dept of Education and by the vested interests of the Catholic church, I’m curious to know if such a thing has ever actually happened.

Educate Together had to work long and hard against official reluctance and church opposition to get to the point where they are today, so I’m convinced that anyone seeking to set up more assertively non-religious schools, such as the one the OP would like, would face a similar struggle. My question is simply this; has there been any attempt, which met with discouragement or opposition, or has no-one made the attempt?

no i suggested simple secular schools have been hindered (not secular schools which gave priority to atheists)

Tell that to Educate Together!

You may take the view that it should be the job of the state to esatablish schools, but it’s hardly a “lie” to recognize that the system for doing so in Ireland gives a considerable advantage to prospective school patrons who are willing to organise and to raise funds. You can complain about this, but you can also take advantage of it, and it may be that the dominance of the churches in Irish education is due to the fact that they have long been willing to take advantage of it.

and it been all so easy for them, no they've been hindered too.

again the advantage of the church is that the held power over the government they dominated education and actively undermined any others attempts to have a more equal system

recedite

ShooterSF wrote: »

Why would a secular group give priority to anyone? The whole idea of secularity is to treat everyone the same.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Well, no, the point of secularism is to conduct human affairs without regard to supernatural considerations, or considerations of an afterlife..........Another (definition) is to teach children that they themselves ought to disregard supernatural considerations when making decisions - i.e. teach them to be non-religious or atheist.

IMO both of the above interpretations or definitions are valid.
The word "secular" is mentioned in Dept. of Education's definition of a non-denominational school, so the meaning of the word has some importance.

non-denominational= "Refers to secular schools which are not aligned to any religion"

expectationlost

people never tried to create atheist priorty secondary schools, because A it would be wrong, and B because they've never tried making secualr schools becuase making multidenominatioanl schools is hard enough

our wonderful functioning education system
http://www.thejournal.ie/primary-schools-deficit-692159-Nov2012/?utm_source=twitter_self Almost half of primary schools in deficit