PaAC: I've had an idea.

[velvetpage]

I was discussing the homeschooling debate with my dad just now, over steeped tea and donuts at Timmy's, and he pointed out that Canadians who want a religious education have an alternative to secular public schools, in the form of the Catholic school board. (At least, they do in most provinces.) We discussed alternative schools within the boards of education, and I had an idea.

It is quite common now for school boards to offer alternative or magnet programs within the public school framework. That is, a school will be geared towards high-level athletes, or towards the arts, or towards science. These schools are generally opt-in; that is, there is no real catchment area other than living within the confines of the school board itself, so no one is forced to attend these schools because of what street they live on.

Why not offer a magnet school for mainstream Protestant education? That is, an opt-in school, under the public umbrella, that gives kids the religious education they would otherwise be homeschooling or charter schooling to obtain. It would be staffed by teachers within the school board who followed the same creed, and those teachers would have all the same employment standards as their counterparts in the rest of the public board. The one and only difference would be the Christian focus.

In some areas, particularly the Bible Belt, you'd probably end up with two separate systems under one umbrella. That would be fine, as long as the public, secular schools continued to operate and were reasonably located to service the population who attended them. It would give parents and students a choice within the public system, so it would no longer be necessary to go outside the public system to get a religious education. The key here is that it has to be opt-in. So long as students and parents have a choice, it doesn't violate any rights. It's only when that choice is denied that there is a violation.

Thoughts?

Comments

A little late...

[neosis.livejournal.com]

It should be no surprise that I think that's probably a bad idea, not worse than the Catholic School board, but no better either.

I think "comparitative religion" is the only religious study that belongs in a publically funded school system. To me, the primary benefit of these "religion streamed" schools seems to be the midguided attempt to "protect" the children from "other views", this should be on of the major strengths of the public school system.

Furthermore, I think this system would be incredibly vulnerable to abuse, what happens if too many people opt their children out of the public system? Do you continue to run an underfunded system that supplies a substandard education to the left overs?

What happens when the majority decides it's cheaper and more effective to simply shut down the public schools and force the remaining parents to choose a "religious" school for their children to attend?

I think a system could work, however, it would be dangerously susceptible to the machinations of adults with an agenda to push. In the states, it would never work. There'd be 10 groups working to subvert the idea before it even got off the ground, even if it wasn't prohibited by the constitution. You'd be handing the Southern Baptists exactly what they want, a way to deliberate punish any school that dares to teach evolution, and a way to censor the world for their children so that only approved ideas are taught at the school. How? They'd organize a mass transfer of children from any school that taught any unapproved ideas.

Personally, I think a public school system that accepts all students regardless of race, religion, or creed is the only way to go. Anything else reeks of manipulative parents trying to ensure that their children believe what they tell them to believe and only what they tell them to believe.

On the other side, I also recognize that the current catholic school system is actually one of the major producers of athiests. I suspect that many of the more intelligent children who come up out of the school easily recognize that the teachers use "God" as a tool to control the students, and it predisposes them to see that behaviour in religion at large.

So in summary, not a good idea, too much room for abuse. It's a first step away from a secular religiously-tolerant country and a first step towards majority-controlled theocracy. Prohibitions about the establishment of religion are there for a reason, to prevent the majority forcing their beliefs on everyone else simply by weight of numbers.