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The British government today released a “joint statement” (PDF) with a number of religious groups, essentially touting the view that “faith schools” are a social good and heralding yet further expansion of their presence in state-funded schooling.

This is despite a two-thirds public majority who think that no religiously-affiliated schools should receive any state funding (BBC), and despite last year’s DfES-commissioned report — “Faith Primary Schools: Better Schools or Better Pupils?” (LSE) — which concluded that there was “clear positive selection of pupils into faith schools on the basis of observable characteristics that are favourable to education”. These “observable characteristics” account for the results disparity which the government still continues to use as an excuse for furthering the faith school agenda, even though their own DfES-commissioned report shows that these successes are down to nothing but social selection, so effectively the better results of faith schools are just a measure of how much the local population is skewed in its favour by covert selection and so-called “pushy” parents.

The British Humanist Association condemned today’s report as a “disgrace” (press release).

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The government has responded to a faith schools petition on the Downing Street website. The petition read:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to ban within government-funded schools the promotion or practice of any particular faith or religion. […] Faith-based or sect schools encourage and propagate divisions within our society. Schools should be places where our children are taught to think about the world around them and come to their own conclusions. In short, they should be taught, not only about the profusion of religions and faiths but also about how moral and socially responsible lives can be led without them; rather than, at a time before they have sufficiently developed critical faculties, being indoctrinated.

The government response follows below.

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There is a petition on the Number 10 website calling for the abolition of faith schools in the UK.

Faith schools remove the rights of children to choose their own religious, philosophical and ethical beliefs. They also sanction ethnic segregation and create tension and divisiveness within society. Schools should be places where children are given a free education, not centres for indoctrination. Creationism and other religious myths should not be taught as fact regardless of the funding status of a school. Abolishing faith schools will provide children with more freedom of choice and help to promote a fully multi-cultural, peaceful society.

Click here to take a look.

Robert Redecker, the French teacher of philosophy who was threatened with death after heavily criticising the content of the Qu’ran and modern Islam, has now resigned from teaching. The resignation comes despite the arrest of two suspects. His criticisms were originally published in Le Figaro, September last year. Although his views are more extreme than many mainstream thinkers usually find comfortable, the French intellectual community has rallied around Redecker in defence of free expression.

(See DNA. Via.)

From the nation that brought us the Enlightenment, the French edition of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? features an astonishing display of scientific ignorance en masse. For €1,500 the question is “Qu’est-ce qui gravite autor de la Terre?” — “Which of these is in orbit around the Earth?” Is it A, the Moon; B, the Sun; C, Mars; or D, Venus?

Not only does the contestant not know the answer, he uses his “Ask the audience” lifeline… with astonishing results.

See the YouTube. (Only limited French required to follow it.) (Via Perlocutionary.)

In more good, book-related news, the Georgia state department of education (US) upheld a decision on Thursday, previously taken by the Gwinnett County school board, allowing famous pagan protagonist, Harry Potter, to remain in school libraries in the Gwinnett school system. The presence of British author J K Rowling’s popular series was threatened in October 2005, when mother Laura Mallory asked her local committee to remove the books from their libraries on the grounds that they were violent and promoted witchcraft.

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Following on from similar efforts in the US which have failed, Russia has its own problems with the teaching of evolution being challenged in courts of law. A student has sued the St. Petersburg city education committee, claiming the biology textbook used in his school was offensive to believers and infringes her human rights, and that teachers should offer an alternative to Darwin’s theory.

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The slightly higher results of “faith” schools in the UK has dogged the debate about their ethical status for a number of years. Now a report (report PDF) commissioned by no less than the Department For Education and Skills, shows that religiously affiliated schools have fewer children from low income backgrounds, that the children are more likely to be white and to speak English as a first language (all of which correlate with higher performance) and have a higher proportion of more proactive parents. These factors, the report indicates — which are both down to “faith” schools’ greater freedom of selection, covertly or subconsciously abused — amply explain the higher performance.

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Yuli Tamir, Israel’s Education minister, has provoked outrage by ordering a controversial change to childrens’ school textbooks; that they should show Israel’s borders as they were prior to the 1967 war, bringing them into line with international law, under which the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights are regarded as illegally occupied territory.

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It went largely under the mainstream media radar, but last week controversial cult documentary Jesus Camp appeared to have shut down the summer camp which it exposed earlier this year, revealing the extent to which it was teaching children “to become dedicated Christian soldiers in God’s army [and] schooled in how to take back America for Christ”.

The owner’s of the rented space in which the camp took place told the organisers not to return after vandals — presumably outraged at the overt indoctrination of children witnessed in the documentary — caused significant damage to their property. The Pentecostal pastor and “Kids on Fire” camp director, Becky Fischer, admitted this was not the only reason to cease activities, however. “Right now, we’re just not a safe ministry,” she said. “I don’t think we’ll be doing it [the camps] for a while.” (See Seattle Times: “Pastor will shut down controversial kids camp“.)

However Christianity Today has now noted (”Jesus Camp Shuts Down, But Fischer Says Her ‘Indoctrination’ Will Continue“) that Fischer conflates “indoctrination” with any “teaching someone else a set of ideas” and that she fully intends to relocate and continue similar activities.

Instead of holding another camp, Fischer said she plans to hold more conferences on the East and West Coasts. However, she won’t be changing her message or how she presents it.

“If I change, no one would come,” Fischer said. “If you want average, ordinary, Sunday school stuff, that’s not who we are. I want kids who are passionate.”

[…] Fischer has no apologies or regrets about the film. “This is my scream to the church,” she says. “You’ve got to pay attention to what you’re doing or not doing to the kids, because we’re losing them from the church.”