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How to achieve secular schools/educational equality
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ulysses,I think I can take it you have no school going children yet.
Been and gone, Mary63. I could well be even older than you - chronologically, at least.
Parents for the most part do not want to take on accountability for their local school,they will pay the voluntary donation gladly because it provides extras for their children but to get parents to talk on voluntary roles in relation to their childs school is very difficult.Very few even turn up at the AGM and the few that do don't put themselves forward for roles because its impossible to hand over to someone else when the time comes.Most parents are very busy,both work long hours and after work there is another full time job to be done at home and everyday is the same.
It would seem, then, that the battle lines are drawn between the atheists who will want the state to take over, and the believers who will want their churches to do the job.
If that is the case, then the atheists will win the day, because the churches no longer have the numbers to run more than 3,000 schools. As long ago as the mid-1970s, I went to a Christian Brothers school, but even then there were only a couple of men in black in the midst of a much bigger group of lay teachers.
Anyway, it would be interesting to see some actual statistical evidence, but absent that there is a lot of anecdotal evidence to show that parents are much more likely to be committed and to get involved in ET schools and in Gaelscoileanna than in Catholic schools. In my admittedly limited experience of C of I schools, parents were also quite active. Is it possible that parental inactivity and apathy is a mainly Catholic phenomenon?They don't want to take over the religious instruction themselves,they are all agreed on that,let teacher do this job,he or she is paid for it whether they like doing it or not.If they have a real problem with it there are thousands of unemployed teachers who will teach black is white to get a permanent and pensionable position.
Thanks for demonstrating why change is needed. You might think that threatening teachers to do it your way is acceptable, but most folk here don't. That's why we're discussing how to achieve the positive change that's needed.Anyone seeking change should put some of their people forward for election....
Why should they? We already have a plethora of candidates and political parties. Let's just put them under pressure.0 -
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Deleted User wrote: »Why will handing everything over to the State (as suggested by Samaris) help? What will we end up with then? Some lowest common denominator Irish form of communism in which the schools are crap and run for the benefit of the staff, but at least we can pat ourselves on the back because they are "equal"?
There you have the single biggest challenge to any organisation setting up non-denominational schools. First, you have to convince people that they'll be better than the devil they know ; and second, you have to prove it. Unfortunately, the example of our two nearest neighbours tends to indicate that the opposite is the case.
My children were/are educated first in the UK and in France. The former has plenty of non-denominational schools, the latter has an aggressive policy of excluding religion from education. What's the outcome? The "religious" schools are invariably over-subscribed and come out top in just about every evaluation of social and academic performance.
So you'll still have parents getting their children Christened to be further up the selection ladder, and inevitably, the religious schools will cream off the higher achievers, leaving the non-denominational schools needing to invest in additional resources just to remain "average". The playing field is not in the least bit level, and no amount of lobbying government to introduce "equality" will change what parents will do to make sure their children come out on top.
Which then raises the question: why are "religious" schools/parents consistently more productive than their secular counterparts, even when the latter have had over 100 years to close the gap (e.g. in France)?0 -
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So that's where the policy work needs to focus then - get Labour, Green, SF to recognise the problem and build momentum towards a solution.expectationlost wrote: »policy can only be done after they recognise the problem, Labour doesn't recognise the problem they keep saying that the constituency would be breach if they did major changes they don't recognise that the constitution is currently being breached.State schools are definitely inferior or maybe the schools with religious ethos are superior look see.
You only have to look at the league tables and the progression onto third level level eight courses to see that.
The best and brightest in every primary school go onto schools with a religious ethos where there is a choice,the demand for the loreto schools and the Christian Brothers schools is phenomenal,some parents take to camping out overnight to get their child a place.There definitely wouldn't be the same pool of highly academic children in the community schools unless this is the only choice of school available.Parents will put their thinking caps on and go for the best school available and they won't care what patron is in place,they couldn't care less.
Parents will look at the results from the community schools in their area and if faced with losing their school or dumbing down to this level in order to achieve a secular education which they don't want anyway,they will revolt.The politicians know this and that is why every promise made to change the system is diluted.There is no demand whatsoever for secular education in this country,never has been and never will there be.The ET schools will fill places because they are trendy and parents like the idea of getting inside the classroom and calling teachers by their first names.The vast majority of the parents though put their children forward for baptism,communion and confirmation and if the ET school doesn't work out for whatever reason they will happily move to the catholic school down the road.
It's hard to know where to start on this. There are actually nuggets of truth here, but you seem to be very confused on cause and effect - and a few facts.
First of all, the league tables don't measure the achievements of pupils or teachers. They measure the ability of parents to pay for 3rd level education. So it's not going to be much of a surprise that the fee-paying religious schools will come out top of this list. This is not an indication of the superior quality of the schools - it indicates much broader socio-economic stuff about the ability of the parents to fund education and broader educational activities.
The Christian Brothers hasn't existed for quite a while now, and the reports of parents sleeping out for places in Loreto are a thing of the past. When you come out with nonsense like "There is no demand whatsoever for secular education in this country,never has been and never will there be" - it is just so way off the wall that I'm left wondering who you are trying to convince, us or yourself?I am really tired of that socio economic argument,it doesn't take too much brain power to know that if you have too many children and too little money the outcome for your family won't be ideal.
We are spending vast sums of money on DEIS schools,we are even providing breakfast for these children.The social welfare payments in this country are generous and I don't believe anyone can't afford a packet of porridge to cook a healthy breakfast for a primary school aged child.
I bet if you went into these so called disadvantaged socio economic households you would see vast quantities of alcohol and cigarettes on display,it would be interesting to see the local shops takings on these products over the last two week period.You can bet too the children have the latest tablets,the latest xboxes and every house has a sky package.
So just to be clear, the many parents and families who queue up daily for meals at the Capuchin centre in Dublin and the Cork Penny Dinners are doing it just for the craic - they really can afford to eat properly without this support, but they suffer the indignity of getting a free meal just because they are lazy - that is your Christian position on this, right?CelticRambler wrote: »There you have the single biggest challenge to any organisation setting up non-denominational schools. First, you have to convince people that they'll be better than the devil they know ; and second, you have to prove it. Unfortunately, the example of our two nearest neighbours tends to indicate that the opposite is the case.
My children were/are educated first in the UK and in France. The former has plenty of non-denominational schools, the latter has an aggressive policy of excluding religion from education. What's the outcome? The "religious" schools are invariably over-subscribed and come out top in just about every evaluation of social and academic performance.
So you'll still have parents getting their children Christened to be further up the selection ladder, and inevitably, the religious schools will cream off the higher achievers, leaving the non-denominational schools needing to invest in additional resources just to remain "average". The playing field is not in the least bit level, and no amount of lobbying government to introduce "equality" will change what parents will do to make sure their children come out on top.
Which then raises the question: why are "religious" schools/parents consistently more productive than their secular counterparts, even when the latter have had over 100 years to close the gap (e.g. in France)?
Fee-paying schools don't cream off the high-achievers - far from it. Look at the top results in the Leaving Cert and the Young Scientists and you don't see the private schools dominating these. The only thing they dominate are the Rugby competitions.
It's the Christian way, don't you know....Jaysus wept, you're lovely. I know who I'd prefer to spend time with, between yourself and the families you describe so charitably and with such deeply nuanced opinion :rolleyes: It would all be so simple if you were in charge, eh Mary?Deleted User wrote: »I disagree with you, so up with my opinions you'll have to put.
The best way to make progress is to improve the situation for everyone, not to improve it just for your own belief system.
You wish to make all schools secular. I wish to extend the presence of non-religious schools. They are philosophically quite different standpoints, they lead to different solutions for tackling the problems, and one is as valid as the other.
There is a third option - take religion out of all state funded schools. If you want a religious education, you pay for it.0 -
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