School indoctrination special

by Feòrag

Religion in the school systems, both in the UK and elsewhere, seems to be in the news right now. Firstly, Jon of Maine sends a pointer to a Boston Globe article:

PRESQUE ISLE, Maine - A seventh-grade history teacher has been placed on administrative leave, less than four months after he filed a lawsuit alleging the school district violated his First Amendment right to free speech by requiring him to adhere to a European history curriculum that emphasizes only the evolution of Christian civilization.

Citing confidentiality policies, administrators in the school district said they could not discuss the reasons Gary Cole was placed on the paid leave last month. Cole, 60, of Washburn, declined to discuss the lawsuit or the administrative leave, referring questions to his lawyer, A.J. Greif of Bangor. Greif said that if one sues a school district and suddenly finds a more hostile working environment, I think a causal link between the two can be easily inferred.

Presumably the curriculum ignores minor aspects of European history like the Holocaust, and certain events which would explain why Muslim Iraqis object to being policed by Spanish forces. On Friday, the National Secular Society Newsline published a letter from Tom Paine about his daughter, and the policy of her allegedly non-denominational school of having evangelical Christian missionaries take assembly. When challenged, they said the law obliged them to do it.

When we brought the matter up at the Governors meeting we were simply told that it was the law. We looked this up on the internet and found out that since 1944 all school children, with the right of withdrawal, have to attend a daily act of broadly Christian worship (now hidden in The Schools Standards and Framework Act 1998). This feels like a colonial law that now reduces Britain to be its own colony and allows schools to be targeted by evangelical parents / parent governors who select head-teachers who, in our case, allow in missionaries. We sought the advice of a top human rights lawyer who told us that public authorities, and this means schools, have a positive obligation to uphold the Article 9 human rights of all its staff and pupils (the Human Rights Act 1998). As nobody had been told that Christian evangelists were coming into the school; we continually pushed the school to meet its Article 9 obligation and inform the whole school that these assemblies were taking place, so that other parents could protect their children's rights. We were fobbed off with excuses such as, The school governors are going to review the assembly provision soon. This took 18 months to happen. We also complained to Charles Clarke, our MP, our Education Authority and its SACRE (this, if nothing else, embarrasses the school).

The school then broke the law when they failed to respect the parents' request that their daughter not be exposed to the assemblies. A meeting with the governors and a snotty letter later...

Within a week of that unpleasant meeting, our response to it, and another letter from one other parent we were told that the school would no longer be visited by Christian evangelists. This has been an empty victory because we never got an explanation as to why the school thought it was OK for our daughter to sit alone in her class room during the year that she had to endure brain surgery (twice) and radiotherapy for a brain tumour, even though withdrawal was her (happy) choice.

Then yesterday's Observer reported on a legal victory secured by an atheist father:

A former Lancashire policeman has won several hundred pounds' compensation from his local council after being forced for several years to pay for buses to take his atheist daughter to a non-religious school.

The decision by Lancashire County Council is likely to have profound national implications. Children whose parents want them to attend a religious school receive subsidies to pay for their school transport pass. But families who don't want their children educated in a religious school have to pay for their own buses to take them to secular state schools.

But now a council has conceded that non-believers are entitled to the same rights as religious families, in a decision that could have national repercussions.

Teacher who sued is placed on leave - Boston Globe, 1st April 2004; Letters to Newsline - NSS Newsline, 2nd April 2004; Secular college victory for atheist schoolgirl - The Observer, 4th April 2004.