Faith schools educate around a quarter of our children, yet we hear little about their social effects. I attended Church of England schools as a child, and why they were undoubtedly good schools, with hindsight I can see that religious content was forced down our throats on a daily basis from the age of four. Aside from classes in religious education, we sang hymns in assemblies, essentially forced to praise God on a daily basis as the more committed teachers picked out and reprimanded any child not singing loudly enough.
'Brain-washing' is an emotive term to use, but it makes me deeply uncomfortable that in the 21st century we still allow children to be indoctrinated in faith by state schools. Freedom of religion is a misnomer in this debate - true freedom would involve removing institutionalized preaching and allowing free-thinking adults to make up their own minds about what to believe; something that the five-year-old child, told by his teachers to "Sing Hosannah" if he wants to go to heaven, isn't yet able to do.
A point that needs to be made more often is that religious schools suppress freedom of religion.
I am not alone in my discomfort, and Accord - a coalition of secular groups from various walks of life (Edit: apparently not as true as I thought, see Duck's comment below) - have produced a limited but interesting dossier of evidence that studies the effects of faith schools on Britain. It's well worth a read, but here are some interesting highlights.
"Three in five (60%) of the general population and two in three (66%) of those in ethnic minority groups think religion is more divisive than race today."
This was according to an Ipsos/MORI poll commissioned by the EHRC, and it highlights the potentially divisive role of faith schools in the community. Admissions policies that give greater weight to parents active within the religion can help to effectively segregate local populations by religion, when social cohesion could perhaps be better served by bring children of different backgrounds together.
Not only do faith schools perpetuate religious divides, they also help to reinforce class divides. Faith schools often perform better in league tables, with a higher proportion of children attaining top grades; and on that basis it is assumed that these schools do a better job. But in fact, government research cited by Accord suggests that this may not be the case.
They suggest that faith schools basically just get the best primary school pupils, likely as a function of their admissions policies. Adjusting for prior achievement of pupils in primary schools, there seems to be little evidence that faith schools do better than anyone else. Faith schools have less children with special needs, and fewer children from poor families eligible for free school meals. As Dr. Rob Berkeley puts it:
"Despite histories based on challenging poverty and inequality, and high-level pronouncements that suggest a mission to serve the most disadvantaged in society, faith schools educate a disproportionately small number of young people at the lowest end of the socio-economic scale."
Another big area of concern is homophobic bullying. This is something which is sadly endemic in all schools, but surveys carried out by charity Stonewall show the problem to be larger in faith schools, while teachers are less willing to deal with it.
"Staff in secondary and primary faith schools are only half as likely to say that homophobic bullying is a serious problem in their schools compared to staff in non-faith schools. Two in five staff in faith schools say that homophobic bullying never occurs in their schools. However, gay pupils in faith schools are more likely to experience homophobic bullying than their peers in non-faith schools. Three quarters of young gay people who attend faith schools have experienced homophobic bullying (The School Report). Some teachers did explain that the religious ethos of their school or the beliefs of their pupils can be a barrier to tackling homophobia or addressing lesbian and gay issues in classrooms."
This results of this survey are backed up by anecdotal experience, such as the following comments from anonymous teachers:
"As I work in a Catholic school I feel the issue is ignored or actually condemned and I don’t think this is right or helpful."
"I have to be careful not to openly disagree with the church's teachings but I can emphasise the need for mutual respect and that everyone is a valued member of the community."
"Children need to be taught to value gay relationships. I worry that there may be homophobic staff because my school is Catholic and this may have a negative impact on the children."
We live in a 21st century, multicultural society, and yet we allow a significant proportion of our school system to be run by followers of supernatural faiths. If this had no impact on our society then it would be fine, albeit unsettling on principle. But the evidence shown here suggests that things may not be okay; that the prevalence of faith schools divides communities, fails poorer children, widens ethnic and class divisions, and allows forms of bullying to go unchallenged. With an election looming, serious questions need to be asked of the major parties.
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While I oppose faith schools because of the issues of homophobic bullying and social division that you raise, I think talking about brainwashing is taking things a bit far and this exaggeration is in danger of undermining the more important points. You say that you went to a church school yourself but it doesn't seem to have done you any harm! I did too, but I and most of my managed to jettison most of the odder ideas about the big beard in the sky around the same time that we realised our dads were eating Santa's mince pie and our pet rabbits did not, in fact, run away to live happily with a family of wild rabbits on Croydon's rolling moors. For that matter some of the most vocal atheists i know went to Catholic schools! The implication does seem to be that some people are smart enough to see through the bullshit but the thickies need to be saved from the propaganda.
The NSS has quite a bit of evidence about faith schools. http://www.secularism.org.uk/religion-in-schools.html. It's one of the main reasons people join - they have kids, send them to school and then find the kids coming home with anti-science ideas as well as religious ones.
The social divisiveness is just as much a problem as indoctrination. Rowan Williams said that a 'church school is a church'. Tough if you're of a different religion or none.
There is no such thing as a Christian child (or Muslim, Jewish etc) just a child of Christian parents. A 16 year old can make their own decisions but how does a 5 year old know what s/he believes?
And it's not just about kids - the schools (paid for by the tax payer) are legally allowed to discriminate in employment.
I don't think a faith school is necessarily worse in any way than a non-faith school; all of the three schools I went to had Christian services most days, so I suppose they were "Christian" schools technically (the primary school was a C of E school), but the religious aspect ended there. And in my personal experience the kids with religious parents ended up religious and the kids with atheist parents stayed atheist.
On the other hand, I think it's very different when you're talking about a school that has a religious entry requirement; none of my schools did, but I really worry about schools that do. Indeed if *adults* choose to only hang around with people of their own religion I worry, but with children it's even worse.
So I have nothing against faith groups running schools (and realistically we are not going to be able to abolish that) or religious services in schools, but I do strongly object to the idea of schools for families of a certain faith only.
"So I have nothing against faith groups running schools (and realistically we are not going to be able to abolish that) or religious services in schools,"
As long as kids can opt out of the religious bits. At the moment, they can opt out of some bits, not others, but the schools really don't make it easy.
'A coalition of secular groups'? WTF? Have you read who is in this rather odd coalition?: http://www.accordcoalition.org.uk/index.php/our-members/
Three explicitly religious groups, Ekklesia (Guardian-reading Christian think-tank), The Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, and Hindu Academy. Two groups bordering on the 'religious', the British Humanist Association, and the Socialist Education Association.
CASE seem to be anti selective admissions and academies in general, with faith schools just being a specific subtype of this campaign. Association of Teachers and Lecturers also seem more concerned about admissions policies promoting 'social cohesion' and avoiding 'segregation', than religion per se.
'Women Against Fundamentalism', haven't much on their website, but whilst they claim to be secular they seem to have a problem with people expressing their religious views in public. The only 'secular group' on the list, and they don't seem to be sure whether they are against religion, against particular forms / practices of religion, or OK with religion as long as it's a free choice.
Your freedom from being forced to follow a state-sponsored religion was won largely by dissenting religious believers, not atheists - whether that's tithes, taking oaths on the Bible, marrying in church, etc etc etc. Know where you're coming from, might help you work out how to arrive.
So this dossier would appear to be a critical appraisal of how successful (or otherwise) faith-based schools have been in being inclusive, with suggestions for how faith schools can weed out the dangerous charlatans from their midst, commissioned by a union of theist, atheist and agnostic organisations. It is not, as I had inferred from your precis, a triumphant report from a secular organisation slamming faith-based schools and the theist faiths that support them.
I very much enjoy your blog for the witty observations on quack medicine and clear concise rebuttals of terrible misrepresentations of science in the media - your recent posts on the misrepresentation of Facebook usage in Portsmouth council, and the observation about the Daily Mail's curious difference of stance in the UK and in Ireland are prime examples. However, the cherry-picking of soundbites from a dossier of evidence (that isn't actually what you say it is) that we see here sadly threatens to undermine those. It deeply saddens me to see someone who clearly has an excellent grasp of scientific principles chucking them all out of the window just to take cheap shots at the "bearded [straw] man in the sky".
"The only 'secular group' on the list, and they don't seem to be sure whether they are against religion, against particular forms / practices of religion, or OK with religion as long as it's a free choice"
The BHA's position on religion in schools (broadly) is that it's OK as long as humanism gets a look-in too. The NSS position is that all schools should be secular; religion should be taught at home or the place of worship.
Michael - if you want much wider-ranging evidence, look at the NSS link in my post above.
I am currently looking for a school suitable for my daughter for next year. I have found I have to discount many schools in my area because they insist on proof that you practice one faith or another. You even need letters from priests to prove your attendance. How ridiculous. This should be outlawed not encouraged. The question of someone's faith should remain a personal one and play no part in the selection process. I can't think of a single justification for it, can anyone give me one?