Tag faith schools

The correlation fallacy of faith schools and their ‘better results’.

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 8 comments

I have often argued about (state-funded) faith schools in the UK, and whether their above-average exam results are used in repeated examples of the correlation fallacy.

Well, it seems they are.

The reality (and having worked in some, I should know) is that the sorts of parents who want their children to do well have high aspirations. Let’s call them HAPs (High Aspiration Parents). HAPs will do things for their children to further their education, both in and pout of school. HAPs will support their children by teaching them to read early, by setting high standards and expectations for their children and so on.

Faith schools cannot continue their immoral policy of discrimination

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • No comments

“How are the mighty fallen!” is a biblical verse that will not only be well-known by the Roman Catholic state school, the London Oratory, but now applies directly to them. The school – famously chosen by both Tony Blair and Nick Clegg for their sons – has just been criticised by the Office of the Schools Adjudicator for breaching the schools admissions code and ordered to change its policy.

Islamic ‘inspired’ stabbing; government approves 25 faith schools; exclusivist policies abound

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 13 comments

So a British soldier was stabbed to death in public, the atrocity being caught and shared on social media. They stayed around to be arrested, not afraid of the consequences, and this is the scary thing. Now there is a widespread Muslim backlash. To make matters worse, the government has admitted that “thousands are at risk of radicalisation” in the UK.

So what do we do to unite society? What do we do to make it more inclusive and less exclusive? How do we break the in-group / out-group psychology which fuels the fires of societal discontent and fear? How to we pull down the walls of separation of ‘us’ and ‘them’?