The key question you all need to be asking is WHY faith schools are generally the best in any area?

If WE all need to be asking that, you obviously know the answer. What is it?

That's for YOU to ask YOURSELVES and decide.

For the same reason that all schools with a selection policy are generally the best in any area - because as part of the selection process, even an undisclosed part of the selection process, they can select the more academically inclined, leaving the less able to be picked up by the non-selective schools - you may as well ask why grammar schools invariably had better academic results than secondary schools.

Is that really true of, say. Muslim schools? Jewish schools? etc?

No as they dont get the same funding from both the goverment and church.

Do you mean to ask if they get to pick and choose their pupils ?

Yes of course they do.

They do get funding though. For example, two or three years ago, the local council free sheet announced that agreement had been reached to provide funding for an Orthodox Jewish school for girls in Stamford Hill.

It would mean, the article explained, that the pupils would spend 50% of their time on the national curriculum and 50% on their other religious studies.

Both mine went to the same church primary school, one is a firm atheist, the other has no thoughts on the subject one way or the other.

My daughter is moving to an Anglican high school this year, which is supposed to be a good school. What I like about the school is the fact that it purposely takes on a significant number of kids with disabilities - resulting in seemingly poor national standards tests on average.

My older sister has sent her kids to an RC school in Surrey, which did make them attend mass etc for a while in advance of the oldest in order to be able to get a letter off the priest, but that seemed reasonable to me. Where she lives there are few schools which aren't either ridiculously expensive or cr*p - the religious schools offer good quality for a far more reasonable fee.

So to go to a government funded school she had to go to church?

A [inon sequitur[/i, to go to a Catholic school she had to go to Catholic church. (Although they do take a significant number of non-Catholics too). The point is, she did not [ihave[/i to go to that church, or any church. It was the parents' choice of school which brought the situation about.

Plus, Catholic schools have to raise about 10% of their own funding, so Catholics are in effect paying part of the cost of education of the many non-Catholics they educate, so it ain't as simple as that.

And wouldn't that be the point in getting them out of schools?

You say they didn't have to send her to that school but it was the best available so of course they 'had' to, if they take a number of non Catholics (does that include theists?) why did she have to go to church? A faster easier way?

How do the church raise this 10%? Tax exemption? Or do the 24 priests/vicars who are allowed into the house of lords, without vote, pass it through?

The system stinks.

Other loons are waiting in the wings to have their agendas promoted in our schools. The ridiculously named rlTruth in sciencerl for example.