Church told to hand over control of 23 more primary schools

krudler

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/education/quinn-will-announce-church-to-lose-school-control-29167728.html

THE Catholic Church is being told to hand over another 23 primary schools in an historic shake-up of the eduction system designed to offer parents more choice.
Department of Education surveys in 43 towns and suburbs over the past six months found that two-thirds of parents wanted a more diverse range of schools -- meaning a reduction of the church's overwhelming dominance of school patronage.

The results of the consultation with 10,000 parents on future control of local schools can be revealed today, with Education Minister Ruairi Quinn pointing out that a majority of areas surveyed had shown sufficient parental demand for wider choice of schools.

He insisted: "We cannot ignore this call for change."

Good stuff, parents wanting changing and choice in their children's educations, long may it continue.

smokingman

Only 23?!

Zillah

smokingman wrote: »

Only 23?!

Baby steps.

Tabnabs

It's excellent, we're looking forward to sending our children to a multi-denominational school. A huge step forward.

robindch

smokingman wrote: »

Only 23?!

That's 23 schools out of 38 voted to abandon church control -- just over 60%. Not perfect, but better than it could have been, given the dozy manner in which the polls were carried out.

I'm expecting there to me much more activity from the Tooters and others when the next round of patronage elections comes up.

expectationlost

http://www.education.ie/en/Press-Events/Press-Releases/2013-Press-Releases/PR-%202013-%2004-%2002.html

so what was the formula they use to decide who met the threshold of demand

A2LUE42

I really hope we don`t end up like the UK and this is the point where a lot of schools went downhill so badly that people end up joining the church to get their children into a decent school.

recedite

Fair play to Ruairi Quinn and his department for sticking with this issue and not letting it drag on forever in an endless "consultative process".

A2LUE42 wrote: »

I really hope we don`t end up like the UK and this is the point where a lot of schools went downhill so badly that people end up joining the church to get their children into a decent school.

A lot of that is due to religious schools being allowed to cherry-pick their applicants, which allows them to exclude people from certain ethnic or socio-economic backgrounds, on the spurious grounds of "religion". Don't fool yourself into thinking its not already happening here.
The cure for this is very simple; withdraw public funding from any institution that restricts public access.

Zamboni

Congratulations to the Independent for their melodramatic headline.
The church played a part in the process. They are not being told to do anything.

Congratulations to ET for providing people an alternative for parents and children of other and no faiths.

But mostly, congratulations to Ruari Quinn.
Regardless of your politics, that man has single-handedly made history in the educational choice in this country.
He will be gone come the next general election and some christian FF/FGer will be Minister for Education, but it will be gone too far to row back these changes.
People of our persuasion should applaud Quinn.

Penn

Zamboni wrote: »

Congratulations to the Independent for their melodramatic headline.
The church played a part in the process. They are not being told to do anything.

Congratulations to ET for providing people an alternative for parents and children of other and no faiths.

But mostly, congratulations to Ruari Quinn.
Regardless of your politics, that man has single-handedly made history in the educational choice in this country.
He will be gone come the next general election and some christian FF/FGer will be Minister for Education, but it will be gone too far to row back these changes.
People of our persuasion should applaud Quinn.

Agreed. It's a shame Labour seem destined to be destroyed in the next Election, because with stuff like this they have made real, important progress.

Skrynesaver

Penn wrote: »

Agreed. It's a shame Labour seem destined to be destroyed in the next Election, because with stuff like this they have made real, important progress.

The social policy agenda was always going to be the only place they could make headway when FG had so many seats and the troika were in town...

expectationlost

Penn wrote: »

Agreed. It's a shame Labour seem destined to be destroyed in the next Election, because with stuff like this they have made real, important progress.

23 schools

VinLieger

expectationlost wrote: »

23 schools

For now, did you want all the schools turned over tomorrow? Be realistic

Peregrinus

robindch wrote: »

That's 23 schools out of 38 voted to abandon church control -- just over 60%. Not perfect, but better than it could have been, given the dozy manner in which the polls were carried out.

No, no. Your methodology is all wrong. It’s 38 districts, not 38 schools. There are many more than 38 schools in the districts concerned (but we don’t know how many more).

In 23 out of 38 districts where the consultation was held, there was sufficient support for a non-denominational school to lead the Department to conclude that one school in the district should be transferred from church patronage to non-denominational patronage.

“Sufficient support” means that the parents of (at least) 80 to 100 pupils indicated a preference for a non-denominational school. Since some parents have more than one child, that could be less than 80 to 100 parents.

We can’t express this as a percentage of the parents voting, since (a) we don’t know how many parents voted for non-denominational patronage; we only know that in 23 out of 38 districts it was at least the parents of 80 children. But even if we knew exactly how many parents voted that way, we still couldn’t express it as a percentage, since (b) we don’t know the total number of parents or pupils in each of the 23 districts.

What we do know is that, in the 38 districts, 10,700 parents voted, and this was reportedly less than a quarter of the parents who could have voted. It’s not difficult to calculate that you could have the parents of 80-100 children in 23 of the districts voting for a non-denominational school, and the total vote for non-denominational schools could be substantially less than 60% of the parents voting, never mind of the parents who could vote. If we assume that 60 parents could represent 80 children, then in theory the vote for non-denominational schools could have been as low as

(60 x 23)/10,700

which is not quite 13% of those who voted, or a little over 4% of those who were entitled to vote.

That’s the lowest it could have been. In fact I’m sure the vote for non-denominational patronage was much higher than that – in those 23 districts at least 60 parents voted for non-denominational schools, but the figure could have been much higher than that, plus of course in the other 15 districts something less than 60 parents voted for non-denominational schools, and they have to be counted as well. But there’s no basis for your figure of 60%.

Pherekydes

Peregrinus wrote: »

No, no. Your methodology is all wrong. It’s 38 districts, not 38 schools. There are many more than 38 schools in the districts concerned (but we don’t know how many more).

In 23 out of 38 districts where the consultation was held, there was sufficient support for a non-denominational school to lead the Department to conclude that one school in the district should be transferred from church patronage to non-denominational patronage.

“Sufficient support” means that the parents of (at least) 80 to 100 pupils indicated a preference for a non-denominational school. Since some parents have more than one child, that could be less than 80 to 100 parents.

We can’t express this as a percentage of the parents voting, since (a) we don’t know how many parents voted for non-denominational patronage; we only know that in 23 out of 38 districts it was at least the parents of 80 children. But even if we knew exactly how many parents voted that way, we still couldn’t express it as a percentage, since (b) we don’t know the total number of parents or pupils in each of the 23 districts.

What we do know is that, in the 38 districts, 10,700 parents voted, and this was reportedly less than a quarter of the parents who could have voted. It’s not difficult to calculate that you could have the parents of 80-100 children in 23 of the districts voting for a non-denominational school, and the total vote for non-denominational schools could be substantially less than 60% of the parents voting, never mind of the parents who could vote. If we assume that 60 parents could represent 80 children, then in theory the vote for non-denominational schools could have been as low as

(60 x 23)/10,700

which is not quite 13% of those who voted, or a little over 4% of those who were entitled to vote.

That’s the lowest it could have been. In fact I’m sure the vote for non-denominational patronage was much higher than that – in those 23 districts at least 60 parents voted for non-denominational schools, but the figure could have been much higher than that, plus of course in the other 15 districts something less than 60 parents voted for non-denominational schools, and they have to be counted as well. But there’s no basis for your figure of 60%.

Surely you're not suggesting only one parent per child has a vote?

Peregrinus

Pherekydes wrote: »

Surely you're not suggesting only one parent per child has a vote?

Good point. I don't know the methodology adopted there - was it one vote per parent, or one vote per pupil? If the consultation is attempting to measure the demand for a non-denominational school, then what you want to know is, how many children would be enrolled in a non-denominational school, if one were provided? And if two parents vote in respect of a particular pupil, and they vote different ways, do you count that as a pupil who would be enrolled in the non-denominational school, or not? Which is why I'm kind of assuming that it's one vote per pupil.

But you're quite right; it's an assumption on my part, and it could be wrong.

But if it's one vote per parent, and if either or both parents voting for the non-dom school is treated as demand for the non-dom school, it could be awkward. Forseeably, when the school was established the number of pupils who would actually transfer in that situation would be less than the consultation is showing, since in at least a proportion of the cases the parent who prefers denominational patronage would win out.

And that would be very embarrassing. The threshold set for recommending the transfer of a school to non-denominational patronage was the parents of 80 to 100 pupils, that being the smallest number of pupils considered necessary for a viable school. For that reason the methodology for estimating demand needs to be robust; if demand is overestimated and the non-denominational school, when established, attracts fewer pupils than required for viability, it will be red faces all round and a significant setback for those who argue that we need more non-denominational schools. Which presumably is an outcome the Department is keen to avoid. So I guess they don't just look at the number of parents voting for a non-denominational school, and assume that the children of all those parents would transfer regardless of whether the other parent agrees, and count them towards the 80-100 threshhold.

Or, if that's what they have done, then I forecast tears before bedtime!

On edit: Koth has obligingly provided a link to the survey report below. It's clear that survey responses were sought on a per-family basis, not a per-parent basis. If two reponses were received in respect of the same pupils, they were discarded.

Phoebas

Are the names or locations of these schools known?

Delirium

For anyone who is interested, link to the PDF of the report (all 203 pages of it).

Peregrinus

Phoebas wrote: »

Are the names or locations of these schools known?

The names of the 23 districts in which a transfer has been recommendedf are known, and they are listed in the Irish Times report about this. The particular schools to be transferred have not been identified yet (as in, not only have they not yet been named in the papers, but nobody has actually chosen which schools are to transfer).

Of the 23 districts where a transfer has been recommended, in one case the transfer is to be to An Foras Patrunachta, and in (I think) two cases to the VEC. In the other cases a transfer to Educate Together is recommended.

Kiwi in IE

No change in our area. Have just phoned the Irish Human Rights Commision and on their advice am writing a formal complaint to them. I am no lawyer but from what I understand the Irish government are breaching Articles 18 and 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We live rurally outside a town that has a population of 10000. How can it be acceptable to only have schools that are run by religious institutions?

Kiwi in IE

I'm sorry if I am ranting but am really angry today! How can children's education be run by establishments that base their values on fairytales believed by adults that are no different from psychotic delusion? Would everyone be happy if 90% of Irish schools were run according to the teachings and principles of Hogwarts from the Harry Potter books? To be honest I think I'd prefer it to the current ridiculous state of affairs.

iPearly

Nothing in Louth. Shame

Kiwi in IE

Nothing is acceptable, good enough, or worth celebrating until the vast majority of schools in this country are run by the Department of Education and suitable for EVERY child, whether Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Athiest, Muslim, Scientology or whatever else!

On saying that I do admire Rauri Quinn for his efforts and will always be a Labour voter as long as I live here, even if only for their stance on education and abortion. I don't see any issue facing this country, despite the economy, as more important than removing the influence of the Catholic Church from publicly funded institutions and services.

Peregrinus

Kiwi in IE wrote: »

No change in our area.

Is that because your area wasn't surveyed, or because it was surveyed but judged to have insufficient demand?

Kiwi in IE

Peregrinus wrote: »

Is that because your area wasn't surveyed, or because it was surveyed but judged to have insufficient demand?

We were surveyed. Insufficient demand.

Kiwi in IE

It seems we are living in a brain dead part of the Country.

Kiwi in IE

It should not matter whether Catholic people resist or not. All schools should be secular, suitable for any religion or none, and run by the Departmemt of Education. Catholics have no reason to oppose this, all schools will remain suitable for their children, as opposed to the current arrangement where nearly all schools are ONLY suitable for their children. Can they not brainwash their kids on their own time? Why should the non Catholic tax payer pick up the tab for universal indoctrination of Catholicism, including of their own children which is contrary to their beliefs?

Kiwi in IE

Religion is a state of delusion!

Kiwi in IE

Truthfully educating and the teaching of religion as fact are two mutually exclusive concepts!

Zamboni

Kiwi in IE wrote: »

It seems we are living in a brain dead part of the Country.

I feel for you. Genuinely.
Is moving even a remote possibility for you?

Kiwi in IE

Zamboni wrote: »

I feel for you. Genuinely.
Is moving even a remote possibility for you?

No we brought a house here and my partner's parents and siblings all live in the area.

I found that one of the questions in the survey was slightly misleading actually. After asking what type of school patronage you would prefer, the next question was "Will you use this school?". I answered yes for the sake of the greater good and any future children we may have, but in reality the answer is no, as Little Kiwi starts junior infants in September. If they were to sort out an ET by September then yes, we would use it. However if he had been in the COI school for 2 years when one opened, and was happy there, I would not move him. Many other parents likely feel the same and would have used an ET had there been one, but are not going to move their 8 year old out of their current school if one opens.

The survey is therefore really only relevant to parents of preschool children. What of those who will become parents for the first time in the coming years. It should have been open to everyone of voting age!

Kiwi in IE

Actually I take that back. That was not a well thought out comment. The last thing I want is the uber Catholic 60+ generation voting as to how my children will be educated!

Cork Boy

A step in the right direction if nothing else

lazygal

I'm not holding my breath on a handover. I think the church and bishops have trusts formed all over and will only handover the dregs they can't be bothered with. I also think there'll be demands for compensation for the buildings.

Cork Boy

lazygal wrote: »

I'm not holding my breath on a handover. I think the church and bishops have trusts formed all over and will only handover the dregs they can't be bothered with. I also think there'll be demands for compensation for the buildings.

Then let them compensate the people who gave them the money for the buildings in the first place

lazygal

Cork Boy wrote: »

Then let them compensate the people who gave them the money for the buildings in the first place

The catholic church is known for its devious, underhanded, mercenary ways. Its asked for money in one handover in Dublin already, citing issues concerning the trust which had responsibility for the school.

MrPudding

lazygal wrote: »

I'm not holding my breath on a handover. I think the church and bishops have trusts formed all over and will only handover the dregs they can't be bothered with. I also think there'll be demands for compensation for the buildings.

Perhaps the government will actually challenge the sham trusts.

MrP

lazygal

MrPudding wrote: »

Perhaps the government will actually challenge the sham trusts.

MrP

There's no move to do so. I know a parent in the area where there was an issue with the trust and ET changeover and nothing's been resolved.

PopePalpatine

If the government are able to chase criminals' laundered funds and the stuff that they've bought with those laundered funds through CAB, surely they can do the same with all of these bullshit trusts.

Cork Boy

PopePalpatine wrote: »

If the government are able to chase criminals' laundered funds and the stuff that they've bought with those laundered funds through CAB, surely they can do the same with all of these bullshit trusts.

You've made the fundamental error in assuming there's a will on the part of the govt to do this.

Ruairi Quinn and a few others aside this government is still half loyal to Rome.

Don't forget the brandishing of the rosary beads at a cabinet meeting*.

*I'm aware this was denied but I don't believe the denial.

robp

PopePalpatine wrote: »

If the government are able to chase criminals' laundered funds and the stuff that they've bought with those laundered funds through CAB, surely they can do the same with all of these bullshit trusts.

Your basically suggesting the Gov should break the law to steal property as to solve a local supply /demand issue in Irish schools which is been addressed by civilised negotiation. This is not 1910s Russia. The Trusts are perfectly legal and even if they weren't present I don't think it would change a lot as most of the schools are not owned by the Orders paying the compensation bill.

robindch

robp wrote: »

Your basically suggesting the Gov should break the law to steal property as to solve a local supply /demand issue in Irish schools which is been addressed by civilised negotiation.

I believe trusts can be dissolved, perfectly legally, by an order of the High Court (though I'm not fully sure how the legislation governing this can be applied to the religious trusts which control access to schools.

robp wrote: »

This is not 1910s Russia.

Tell that to the peasants who voted to maintain a discriminatory school system overseen by an organization with the Catholic Church's record of child-care.

Zamboni

robp wrote: »

Your basically suggesting the Gov should break the law to steal property as to solve a local supply /demand issue in Irish schools which is been addressed by civilised negotiation. This is not 1910s Russia. The Trusts are perfectly legal and even if they weren't present I don't think it would change a lot as most of the schools are not owned by the Orders paying the compensation bill.

I pay extra taxes because priests raped children. Let that sink in for a minute.

I would have no issue with the state doing whatever is necessary to squeeze every last cent out of any of those orders or their asset protection scams.

Greenmachine

Take every last penny off the church.

jank

Welcome news that people are getting a choice in their schooling. It is clear that some areas want to keep the church somewhat involved in the primary school system while others want change. What is apparent is that most parents dont care either way as I presume their focus in on the actual standard of education their children are getting.

within each area the responses only varied from 13pc to 26pc

I wonder how the handover will be managed; will the state have to pay out the church to take over the school buildings? Start paying rent? There will I imagine be some sort of financial compensation, which might be unpalatable for some but we don’t nor do we want to live in a country where mob rules apply.

Peregrinus

jank wrote: »

I wonder how the handover will be managed; will the state have to pay out the church to take over the school buildings? Start paying rent? There will I imagine be some sort of financial compensation, which might be unpalatable for some but we don’t nor do we want to live in a country where mob rules apply.

It looks to me as if the handover will be quite complex.

The threshold for recommending a non-denominational school is the parents of 80-100 children indicating that they would choose such a school. That would be the smallest viable school; a four-teacher, four-classroom school.

The thing is, in most of the areas where a transfer is to happen, there is no four-teacher, four-classroom campus. The school that is handed over is very possibly going to have to get smaller at least initially. That means other schools will have to get bigger. That could mean that the handed-over school has vacant classrooms and underused facilitities, while money has to be spend building extra classrooms in one or more of the other schools. Or, one of the other schools will be split between two campuses, with part of the school sharing a campus with the non-denominational school, which won’t have a campus of its own.

For the same reason, teachers are going to have to transfer. The handed-over school may have to shed teachers, while other schools will have to recruit. The other schools may not like to be told that they must hire the teachers shed by the handed-over school. Or, the teachers concerned may not like that. Expect the INTO to have, and to voice, strong opinions on this issue; similarly the boards of management of all the schools will have opinions about how they should choose which teachers to let go, or to recruit, as the case may be.

And of course pupils are going to have to transfer. If one school in the district is handed over, it’s likely that a majority of the parents in that school actually prefer denominational patronage, and some of those may seek to transfer their children. Conversely, a majority - probably a large majority - of the parents who prefer non-denominational patronage will currently have children in other schools; they’ll have to transfer to get the patronage they want (and many of them may not be prepared to do so).

So, basically, there’s going to have to be quite significant exchanges of pupils and of teachers, and a good degree of flexibility over school-splitting and campus sharing, and probably bit of money spent on building extra classrooms, etc, where they are needed.

In amongst all this is the question of who is going to own what property. I suspect, in fact, that that will be dealt with in a way which helps to solve some of the other issues, e.g. the state will buy the land on which stands the transferred school, with the sale proceeds being used to pay the cost of some of the other issues, such as erecting extra classrooms elsewhere. Or, the land will be transferred for free, or a nominal amount, in return for a state commitment to pay for extra teachers/extra facilities in the other schools.

Peregrinus

Kiwi in IE wrote: »

I found that one of the questions in the survey was slightly misleading actually. After asking what type of school patronage you would prefer, the next question was "Will you use this school?". I answered yes for the sake of the greater good and any future children we may have, but in reality the answer is no, as Little Kiwi starts junior infants in September. If they were to sort out an ET by September then yes, we would use it. However if he had been in the COI school for 2 years when one opened, and was happy there, I would not move him. Many other parents likely feel the same and would have used an ET had there been one, but are not going to move their 8 year old out of their current school if one opens.

The survey is therefore really only relevant to parents of preschool children. What of those who will become parents for the first time in the coming years. It should have been open to everyone of voting age!

Fair point. (Although I note your own rebuttal of the point too!)

I think the survey was designed to identify current or imminent demand for non-denominational schools; hence it focussed on the parents of children now in primary school or pre-school. They don’t want to go to a lot of grief and expense to transfer a school to non-denominational patronage and then have it sit half-empty for years while they wait for the children who will eventually populate it to be conceived. The threshold they have chosen for recommending at transfer is at the lowest end of the range of viability (and in fact is a size of school which in most other countries would be regarded as non-viable). That, obviously, works in favour of the greatest number of transfer recommendations. But the downside is that there’s very little room for slippage in there; they really need 80-100 pupils to populate the school in fairly short order, so they can’t count kids who are years off school yet, or who are still unborn.

As your own post indicates, even some parents who feel strongly about this won’t, in fact, transfer their children to the non-denominational school. If kids are already in school, settled, happy and doing well, parents will think twice about transferring them, and many will decide not to. On the other hand, for the same reason parents who have a preference for denominational patronage but whose children are in the transferred school may opt to leave them there. So it may be some years before the transferred schools are actually largely populated by children whose parents actively want non-denominational patronage. In the meantime, expect some pressure from the parents who prefer denominational patronage (who may well be a majority of the parents initially) for the transferred school to continue to accommodate religious education and/or sacramental preparation in one way or another!

Excitin’ times ahead, I think.

Nodin

robp wrote: »

Your basically suggesting the Gov should break the law to steal property as to solve a local supply /demand issue in Irish schools which is been addressed by civilised negotiation. ......

No, I think the suggestion is that schools be used against the churches debt to the state.

Peregrinus

Nodin wrote: »

No, I think the suggestion is that schools be used against the churches debt to the state.

"The church" is a fairly nebulous concept. Since the Reformation, "the Church" has had no legal existence, personality or capacity in Ireland. "The church" can no more have a debt to the state than "the femininist movement" can. Nor can it own property.

What you have is various church bodies which may own property, and which may have debts to the state - the Irish branches of various religious orders, for example, or church-affiliated organisations like the Vincent de Paul or Trocaire or Veritas. And if a body which had a debt to the state also owns property - e.g. a school - which the state desires, then no doubt something can be arranged whereby the debt is satisfied, or partly satisfied, by the transfer of the property.

However we have no reason to suppose that the particular national schools to be transferred belong to bodies which are indebted to the state. Most Catholic national schools belong to various diocesan trusts, which were set up in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century as a practical mechanism by which the Catholic dioceses could own and control property (given that they were unable to own them directly). It's possible that some of those dioceses are indebted to the state, and of course there may be some obligation to repay school capital grants if a property ceases to be used as a school. But if you are thinking of debts arising out of child abuse compensation claims, I think most of those are owed by various religious orders, which are separate from the dioceses and not controlled by them. It's possible that some of those orders own national schools which are now to be transferred, but that's not going to be so in more than a small proportion of cases.

As Robin points out above, trusts can be dissolved by the High Court, but not on a whim; there needs to be a legal basis for dissolution. And "the State wants to seize the property in the trust" is not going to be enough.

I don't think the state can attempt to seize the property of A in order to satisfy the debts of B, on the basis that both A and B are Catholics, and still claim to be a state which take the rule of law seriously. Any attempt to do so would almost certainly be frustrated by the courts - if not by the Irish courts, then by the European Court of Human Rights. This is going nowhere, and the Department is not going to attempt it. However the financial and property complications of transferring national schools are resolved, it will by something which is at least plausibly constitutional, and respectful of the rule of law.

Kiwi in IE

I had mentally prepared myself for Little Kiwi to start the COI school in September, there is no way around that, since it is April already, even if an ET was going to open in our area. My problem with this though is that now any future children we may have will also have to attend a religious school as long as we live here.

The local COI school currently has a lovely, liberal principal, there is a lack of emphasis on religion, and religious rituals carried out by COI are done outside school time as extra curricular. She could retire in 5 years and be replaced by a religious fanatic!

Nodin

Peregrinus wrote: »

"The church" (.....) of law.

Where such bodies do exist that have schools in their poessesion and that have a debt to the state, it makes sense these should be used against payment due. Happy now?