To clear up some misconceptions, the federal government spends about $6,000 of taxpayer’s money per student in a private school, and about $12,000 of taxpayer’s money per student in a public school.

Most societies have some form of religion. It is ironic that so many academics condemn China for its human rights record regards censorship, freedom of speach and religion, and then attack religious schools in Australia.

The idea that schools should teach science and not religion is also rather twisted. Subjects such as maths and science are in complete decline in Australia, and now judged to be below “critical” in our highly feminist education system (where maths and science are deemed to be “too male”).

In our education system, we don’t have religion, we don’t have science, we just have a vacuum.

Religious education should be offered in every public school. Catholic teaching and the various denominations like Anglican, Unting, Presbyterian etc should also be offered.

Parents have a right to see that their children learn about God, how to pray,the commandments and so forth.

Here in Victoria, an acquaintance of mine who is an atheist has drawn up a curriculum for teaching ethics in the same type of timeslot in schools as religious instruction as an alternative to RI. The Dept of Education has accepted it. I haven't followed up to see which schools are operating this but my friend said that there was no difficulty attracting teachers of the curriculum.

There is one other avenue which I regard as more intrusive into secular education than the ethics situation and that is the "school chaplain" system which John Howard began funding. The claim is that they do not evangelise. Ooooh?! I have watched over the years the inroads that evangelical/pentecostal faiths made into this situation until they got to the stage where John Howard funded it. I am a practising Christian but I think this is a further erosion of the concept of sound free and secular education open and available to all.

The chaplain idea has broadened in recent years across all Christian denominations. For most of us, the only time we came across a chaplain was in hospital. Sure there were army chaplains and industry chaplains. I never saw much to complain of in all these because they were in areas where individuals could find themselves in great need. However, I have noted wide-ranging chaplaincies including the school variety which seem to have the purpose, in my view, of providing God-jobs for the ever-growing numbers of graduates of theological and bible colleges. I even came across a young man in Sydney who purported to be a chaplain to Fred Nile! The young man was not the sharpest knife in the drawer and knew nothing of politics - but he came out of the Bible College at Christian Life Centre, Waterloo which is now known as City Hillsong and this institution was supportive of Nile.

Vanna, you might be the one with the misconception. The article on which you comment was entirely about government schools. I don’t think it made a single claim that would justify your comment about relative funding of government and private schools.

Webby, the reason why the beliefs of specific religions should not be taught is that they all make claims about “truths” whose truth cannot be verified, and which in many cases defy belief. What children should be taught is that there are many people who hold many different religious beliefs, that some of them are so wedded to these beliefs that they are prepared to kill others for not sharing them, and that when they grow up they will be able to commit to one of these religions if they conclude that it would be an intelligent thing to do. That is, children should not be taught about God; they should be taught about religions. Maybe they should also be taught about the Templeton Foundation experiment (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/health/31pray.html) that showed that intercessory prayer has no effect on patients who did not know they were being prayed for but made those who did worse.

Glen C,

It is interesting that there have been so many societies that believe in God, or believe in a group of gods. These societies have occurred right back through time, and I think this desire to believe in a God (or group of gods) is part of the human condition.

Instead of “secular education”, read “socialist and feminist indoctrination”, and I think the intent of the article becomes clearer.

"Archbishop Jensen is concerned children may be attracted to the new ethics classes and abandon faith-based acceptance of what is right. Why, because they make more sense? This is a turf war being fought in schools. The feigned innocence of the ethics course proponents is not helpful".

The author of the article is advocating direct confrontation with the religious establishment on the introduction of ethics classes for all public school student. That would be almost doomed to fail for political reasons. Having students twiddle their thumbs during SRE classes is demonstrably unfair to those students and those students are entitled to an alternative. It is reprehensible that religious bodies have had a veto over the introduction of such an alternative for 130 years. I personally question the ethics of those who sought to have that veto or who now fight for the right to continue to exercise it.

The ethics classes if introduced to all schools, as they should be, will improve the intellectual capacities of those students who have elected to avoid scripture and that is what really frightens the religious establishment. The ethics classes are really a lower grade concept of Philosophy for Children which has been shown in a Scottish trial to improve cognitive abilities by 6-7% after one hour of the subject for less that eighteen months. The intellectual improvement was accompanied by substantial reductions is undesirable classroom behaviour (in reality improvement in behaviour in general). With such advantages available any parent concerned for having their child develop to his or her full potential will come to favour the ethics classes as it will be a first step in the right direction.

It is a "slowly, slowly catchee monkey" situation and I suggest the religious establishment may be more concerned for the future of their power base than for the good of the students.

General Religious Education (GRE) is part of the curriculum in all NSW schools (Yr3?) and teaches about all major faiths, and involves visits to places of worseship.

Children have a right to see that humanity yearns about different Gods, and some yearn to pray, follow 'commandments', and so forth.

Parents have a right to see that their children don't learn about God, how to pray, the commandments and so forth, as these are separate to most rational human interaction.

Secular driven ethics classes need healthy competition from philosophy. Good philosophy. Good philosophy includes God and our best understanding of God comes from knowledge of Christ. Ethics done without the ten commandments and the teachings of Christ will be a case of the blind leding the blind. God ethics can partially occur through being in touch with the natural law and human naturehowever, if left unaided by Divine Revelation, is in danger of succumbing to the anti-Christian ethos out there in the Australian community.

All Catholic priests learn philosophy ( how to think straight) before doing Scripture and theology subjects. This is good and this is how it always should be.

The truths and infallibility of Scripture can only be brought out by adherence to an infallible interpreter, ie the Catholic Church.
Protestants learn Scripture before philosophy/ethics and end up with a continual reinventing of the wheel through pitting/weighing/focusin on different biblical passages and ultimately still ( subconsciously or consciously) give adherence to man made philosophies ( like the anti Christian secularists) by adhering in the case of the former to Calvin, Knox, Zwingli,Huss or Luther.
The point being is that to do ethics ( philosophy) needs to be done from the very very best eg Aquinas, the Church Fathers, the Greeks. Now the Catholic Church has already sifted a lot from these greats, not in order to supplant Scripture but to get people thinking straight and according to the best in human nature so as to avoid as far as possible illogical and unreasonable modes of thinking or projecting upon God's Written Word( the Scriptures).
Message here for both the Protestants as well as the secularists who operate out of the same box ( subconsciously yet philosophically).
Poor philosophy results in poor biblical understanding and misinterpretation, to say nothing for ethics.

Philosophy is the study of knowledge and ideas to discerne truth, logic and ethics.

Philosophy is distinguished by a systematic approach and reliance on reasoned argument - sound deductive argument and strong (cogent) inductive argument.

It is thus grounded in critical analysis and logic itself, and these differentiate it from other ways of addressing ideas and knowledge (other ways such as mysticism or mythology).

It is contextual, in terms of the subject(s) and history, and changes in history over time.

“…: they learn cultural and moral values through, for example, history, english and drama, civics instruction and even sport.”

But whose cultural and moral values do they learn? The values of individual teachers and text-book writers totally unknown to the students or their parents.

Surely anything outside the three R’s and those subjects needed for students to gain employment should be left to parents. Australian law should be taught, but the moral and ethical opinions of people in a democracy vary widely, and these should dealt with by parents and family; anything else is state brainwashing.

Even as a non-religionist, I agree with Archbishop Jensen. Whereas religion is apolitical, it beggars belief that The James Ethics Centre is not riddled with politics. There is enough political brainwashing going on now in English and the ‘interpretation’ of history by text writers.

The best solution to concerns about religion and any other non-core subjects taught in schools is to get rid of anything not pertaining to education for work; anything else can be taken up informally as people grow older and want to stretch their minds. The state should not be teaching religion or any other subject best left to parents

The State should not teach religion however, the State should allow parents ( who are the primary educators of their children) the opportunity to have religion classes at school according to their professed religion.
It is a human right to have religion taught to our children and the State schools should do as they are told, by us, their masters. The State is our civil servant ( or meant to be). Let us assert that right by telling them so.

Parents should not be the primary educators: society and the community should ensure education is relevant, current and worldly; yet some parents are not capable of that

The State should allow parents the opportunity to not have religion classes at school ...

"The State should not teach religion" - agreed. There should not be a state religion

Ethics are common to all societies, and existed long before the major religions.

The ethics in the scriptures are simply a reflection of existing standards required for human interaction. Any claim that ethics teaching without religion is pointless is extremely cheeky.

In reality religion has very little to offer ethics. The existing religious education system is abhorrent.

McReal, you are being passively aggressive and your hostility to religion is showing. Being "worldly" can have both good and bad commotations so spare us your nebulosity and instead eleaborate on what you actualy mean by that.
You have a totalitarian and anti human rights belief when you say that "Parents should not be the primary educators". This is insincere tripe because such lack of qualification would be rejected even by you if you found aspects of the society, community and world objectionable in their influence over your children ( if you have any). So..., go get real, McReal.

A State religion? Aren't you jumping the gun McReal? Whils that is a good ideal and a teaching of the Catholic Church which I endorse, it is a very long way off. Ever since Europe moved form Catholic to part Protestant, then Masonic and Deist...it is a long way off. But I sense your fear. 'Don't be afraid' says Christ to all of us, and also to you, McReal. LOL
'Be not afraid, I go before you always. Come follow me. And I will give you rest': quote from the Good Shepherd and founder of the true Church ( Catholic) Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Well done Meg Wallace, and I see Glen C has commented too, his own article is linked to this one...also worth a read.

The idea that students are being 'taught' in this scarce timeslot in schools simply does not stand up to scrutiny.

This time is all about, and only about, evangelising and proselytising with the aim of keeping the pwes full, the ever emptying pews that is.

In 1995 Archbishop Hollingworth said exactly this in his address to the Brisbane Anglicans, The Scripture Union web page says exactly this today...go and read it.

The pretend 'chaplains' in schools are nothing short of a free kick to otherwise unemployable extremists, as another poster suggests above.

It is time we had a review of all such acceptance of this cheap gin-palace variety of religion in state schools, and a major purge of the system, right around the nation-state.

And do we really need to 'teach ethics'? Whose ethics? Yours, or mine?

Far better students were taught how to 'think' a little more critically than many adults can today.

It would also help a great deal if the design of schools was looked at. They are destined to continue 'failing' if they continue to be run as sausage factories of coercive control.

They need no 'chaplains', just a more intelligent use made of their space, and a total revamp on what 'education' is for.

I rather like the English guy who was here so time ago, Sir Ken Robinson...an educator..check out the TED vimeo/youtube via the Lifematters ABC webpage, last year sometime.

'It is a human right to have religion taught to our children'. Wrong, Webby, it is a human right to have the freedom to practise your religion of choice. Nothing about being taught it at school, though of course you have the option of attending a faith-based school. Given that the school day is a mere six hours and is already pretty full, the remaining eighteen hours, plus weekends, provide plenty of time for parents to arrange religious instruction for their children. As you say, parents are the 'primary educators of their children'.

Webby I notice you are being the tipical christain and making statements about religion as if Main stream christianity is the only game in town.

"The State should not teach religion however, the State should allow parents ( who are the primary educators of their children) the opportunity to have religion classes at school according to their professed religion."

How does that work, there are Tens of thousands of religions out there, should we make room for all (or just the ones your confortable with) or none of them. would you be happy to see a wikan talk about white magic or a PNG whitch doctor come in a teach how a persons brain must be eaten when they die. You haven't really thought this throught have you? The fact is that more and more of us are not christains so my vote is for none of them. to be taught The funny thing of this whole debate is it shows just how backward the East coast of Australia is.

It would be fantastic if we could abolish religious classes tomorrow, but in reality that will take time. And what are we supposed to do in the meantime? Does the author propose that, on principle, we should continue to subject our kids to mandatory down-time? If we are barred from teaching them anything from the curriculum while the scripture classes are going on, then we owe it to ours kids to give them a useful alternative, right now. I'm not going to sit around waiting for the perfect solution, at the expense of my kids!

I have taught in government schools for 18 years and I can assure the author that I have seen a fair few unqualified youth liaison / intervention folk who really have had no idea how to help kids where they need it most - the answer to pastoral care for students doesn't lie solely in this area. I've also seen fantastic efforts being made by both secular Pastoral Care Co-ordinators and Chaplains. To generalise that all school chaplains are only evangelistically-minded and incompetent isn't really the stuff of objective comment.
Christianity has been the driving force of public education when we look at history - the influence of evangelical Christendom predates the education Act which legislated for compulsory secular education in the late 19th century in Australia.
A purely secular worldview which rules out religion is a narrow worldview, but also, it becomes a form of religion in and of itself. It is a very limited education that rules out God. It simply doesn't stand up to reason to argue that secular science can't empirically prove God, therefore, He doesn't exist, therefore, He's out if the classroom. If God could be proved, then the mechanism for proving Him would itself become god - when you think about it, only God can actually testify to Himself, hence the Bible (God's Word) as a record of his actions among men, and the argument for His existence from creation (in itself a telling argument - a sunset surely points to Someone else. A Mozart symphony surely indicates a Creator behind man's genius.)
A purely secular education is a very narrow one, and really not a part of the broad-based and supposedly rounded education that liberal education theorists have prided themselves on since the 1970's.
TAC.

GeorgeKaplan

There is no impediment to changing the rules right now.

There is no 'law' that says 'teach the kiddies nothing' while the evangelising goes on.

Like the prayers in Parliaments, this is just an administrative nonsense.

So, it can be changed quite simply, without getting rid of evangelising for those parents who what to continue abusing their children.

The 'ordinary' lessons should continue, and those who need to be abused by volunteer evangelisers can go to a 'separate location' and have their heads filled with whatever the churches want... they then make up whatever they missed during their absence from class.

This is what happens to every child in a Qld state school right now.... who learns an instrument in a state school.

And it works just fine.

The model is there to be copied right around Australia.

You see... Qld... The Smart State (even though we are denied a secular public school system at the same time)

GlenC, you've given the game away:

"What children should be taught is that there are many people who hold many different religious beliefs, that some of them are so wedded to these beliefs that they are prepared to kill others for not sharing them, and that when they grow up they will be able to commit to one of these religions if they conclude that it would be an intelligent thing to do."

I notice that you're keen to emphasise to children that some (actually: a very, very small minority) are prepared to kill for their cherished beliefs.

But you didn't ask that children be taught the other side of the coin: The good that religion does.

Perhaps children should also be taught about the history of great universities and charities started due to people being inspired by their religious faith? Or what about the contribution religious principles have made to our legal system and our shared values as a society? Or how about children also be taught that religion generally inspires people to give more to charity (as proven by numerous studies which show that the religious donate more time and money to Charity)?

But no, GlenC isn't keen on mentioning any of that, it seems. He's more intent on force feeding the idea that religious people kill for their beliefs, even though it's only a tiny minority that does this.

TAC, to say "a sunset surely points to Someone else" and "A Mozart symphony surely indicates a Creator behind man's genius" are fallacious arguments from design. To say God cannot be disproved, therefore God exists is a fallacious argument fro ignorance (and that is not calling you ignorant).

A purely secular worldview includes religion, while religion alone is a narrow worldview.

Christianity provided early childhood education in Australia (in the mid 1800s), yet has not been a driving force since then, when key administrators could only wrestle education away from the churches by having to concede the half hour SRE.

Webby: a state religion is not a good ideal - you seem to have misread the few simple sentences I wrote sincerely (we went "there" with the dark ages, and Gallileo's internment & Bruno's inquisition and subsequent burning at the stake).

By "worldly", I meant how the world *is*: in terms of human creativity (arts, literature, music), culturally, societally, and scientifically - biologically, anthropologically, astronomically, etc. ... I respect the curriculum and oversight of the Australian education departments, especially the NSW DET, to provide for all - even for parents who would narrow their childs education too much if those parents had their way.

Hence, parents are not always the best 'primary educators of their children'.

Meg Wallace accuses those who support the current trial of secular ethics classes as evangelising in the war of beliefs. Evangelising literally means the preaching of the gospel according to the New Testament. Metaphorically, evangelising means advocating your own particular set of beliefs. However, the difference here is that religious evangelism depends on the acceptance of religious beliefs on the basis of faith, i.e., accepting the Christian God, and the inerrancy of the Bible, whereas secular "evangelism" means the promotion of certain viewpoints or beliefs on the basis of a combination of evidence-based precepts and leading a life based on the Golden Rule ("Do unto others ...etc"). That is, religion-free, non-theist beliefs based on scientific reasoning. According to the 2006 census about one-fifth of the Australian population profess no religion, though, by my observation, the proportion of non-theist Australians would be higher. Many Australians have turned away from religion and religious "explanations" of phenomena. There is no "feigned innocence" on the part of those of us who desire a Socratic discourse amongst children in secular ethics classes. Rather the obvious current strong support of this present trial is symptomatic of the frustration felt by many Australians about the long-standing tenacious grip which the religiously inclined have long held on the education of children. We are not evangelising. We are simply logically advocating the encouragement of critical thinking in today's school kids. We continue to advocate a complete separation of church and state. School education should be religion-free. Parents have ample opportunity to send their kids to church and other religious instruction outside of school hours. Evangelism is the domain of the religiously inclined. Critical thinking is a way of keeping humans honest.

phenologist... you misread the intended message of the author.

She is not saying anything other than, allowing the religious class to go ahead, with the ethics class, is to continue an endorsement of the religious class.

Here, at the end of the article, she says, "Rather than participating in a system of discriminatory, faith-based exclusionary practices by introducing secular ethics classes as an alternative to religious instruction, proponents should be agitating for all students to be exposed to the benefits of the evidence-based reasoning they espouse", and that is all.

Your obvious support for the ethics class, quite understandable if you do not want your child to spend hours doing SFA while others are being evangelised to at the connivance of the State, is perhaps blinding you to the clear message offered, that what is needed, is no CRE or SRE or RI or RE whatsoever.

I've heard LOngstaff talking, and he has no intention of openly challenging the status quo beyond getting this small alteration in.

And, good on him and those who do support this minor improvement too, yer dun good, but this cannot be the end of it.

Rudd and Abbott are 'at one' on this nonsense, with Abbott wanting the same Bible lessons given that Qld has had since 1910 in their non-secular public school system.

Rudd is guilty as hell here, for his part in giving Scripture Union a free kick to enter Qld public schools, long before Howard dreamed up his NSCP scam.

Parents, and citizens, need to take the governments on, and tell them that 100 years of sanctioning mumbo-jumbo is over.

Chaplains and religious volunteers need to pack up their swags and take off, clear the decks, move over for education at last.

The problem seems to be with those here who mistake 'secular' for 'atheist', and believe that a secular school will be 'teaching atheism' instead of religion.

Hardly, any more than BHP teaches atheism in their 'secular' workplaces, or any other employer for that matter (apart from religions and faith schools of course).

Do children who don't opt for the religion classes really do 'nothing'? Our local public school keeps the non-religious kids occupied in a class loosely called Values Class, run by a teacher. They do activities drawn from existing programs about mentoring, anti-bullying etc - not very exciting but better than twiddling their thumbs, and they have to be supervised whatever they are up to.

Here we go again. I think that there's a place for both ethics/philosophy and religious education in government schools, but that religious instruction belongs at home, or in the church, mosque, temple, synagogue or whatever.

TBC's most recent post covers the issue well. While I'm not as familiar with the situation in NSW, certainly the ridiculous situation in Qld State schools needs to change. If parents want their kids to receive religious instruction they should organise that outside school hours, or send their kids to a church/religious school. Chaplains should be replaced by qualified counsellors.

The only reason the godbotherers get away with this anachronistic and inequitable rubbish is because apathetic parents let them.

Candide..not knowing which state you live in it is hard to comment accurately on what happens in 'your' school.

However, in Qld there is no requirement for students to be given any work at all.

This is an administrative creation, an internal nonsense of Ed Qld. It can be reversed tomorrow, if Bligh or Wilson were the least bit interested in 'education'.

They are not.

Some decent teachers take it upon themselves to use the time constructively. One school has a male teacher teaching studebnnts to play chess, which proves to be popular. Others just allow students to do whatever they like, homework, further study, reading.

It does not 'hurt' to have free time, even in school, but it is a bit slack of governments to leave it to schools to make-it-up.

Also, in Qld, there are some schools that run 'values' programmes. Parents have to look very closely at these so-called neutral classes. The Bahai's run 'values' programmes in some schools, but Ed Qld is so dishonest that no one tells parents the origins of these courses.

So, a student could be doing 'values' instead of RI, and end up doing a Bahai version of RI, not 'values' at all.

People who are interested should download this report 'In The Balance: The Future of Australia's Primary Schools', written for the primary school principals. Turn to pp.18-19.

"Religious education was allocated the most time outside the KLAs and more time than Science, LOTE and Technology. Teachers in Catholic schools allocated 158 minutes to religious education and independent schools 119 minutes.

"Government schools allocated an average of 18 minutes per week to scripture. Although 39 per cent of government schools reported they did not make scripture available, the remaining 61 per cent provided between 30 and 45 minutes.... teachers reporting that volunteers often missed sessions."

Typically, our primary school principals failed miserably to suggest that, in government schools at least, this 45 minutes of time that volunteers could not be bothered to turn up to, should be bulldozed away.

This is because so many of them are evangelical Xtians.

Trav
My apology for my unbalanced comment: “What children should be taught is that there are many people who hold many different religious beliefs, that some of them are so wedded to these beliefs that they are prepared to kill others for not sharing them, and that when they grow up they will be able to commit to one of these religions if they conclude that it would be an intelligent thing to do." I was only mentioning some aspects of a balanced education that I thought needed airing to balance the rather intemperate views of Webby. Nevertheless, it was careless and your criticism is fair.

In a separate article on Archbishop Jensen’s ten reasons for opposing the trial ethics course being offered as an alternative for non SRE children in NSW, I put it this way: “ … but the Archbishop is not asking for a study of religions but of God — his version of God. Children are entitled to be taught the relevant facts: that there are different religions in the world whose adherents strongly believe different things — even to the extent of relying on faith when there is no verifiable evidence available; that religions have been responsible for both good and evil; and that all children on reaching adulthood have the right to commit to a religion if, at that time, it strikes them as an intelligent thing to do. But that’s not what children are adjured to believe in SRE.”

Of course religion has been associated with lots of good things — sacred music and art and the birth of universities for starters. But it has been, and still is, associated with evil and brutally cruel actions that are unlikely to get a hearing in SRE.

BTW, are you saying that it's OK for religious people to commit murder if only a minority of them engage in it? Can you be sure that historically it's only been a tiny minority? And why is it education when you teach the good that religions do but "force feeding" when you mention the bad?

""so many of them are evangelical Xtians."
The Blue Cross, Wednesday, 28 April 2010 9:00:18 AM

Who? The Principals? (Or the volunteers?)

You imply the former - the Principals.

Glen C
There is a major flaw in the author’s and your intentions to eliminate religion in schools, and replace it with unbiased classes in ethics.

Who in the education system is capable of teaching unbiased ethics?

I think it well established that universities and many schools are predominately made up of left-wing academics, many of whom are quite open about it, and many of whom are also quite socialist, Marxist or feminist.

Their type of ethics would be quite different to anyone else’s, and many also seem to have considerable difficulty in believing in anything greater than themselves.

That’s the scary part.

Secular ethics cannot be taught to all children because of the difference in beliefs of many parents. There would of course be many good things in such ethics courses where there is common ground but this may not always be so. Catholics would be against relativism and situational ethics especially if they have no reference to objective standards and first principles. It is not the duty of the State to interfere or teach relativist codes to children whose parents hold to an objective code based on the natural law and objective measures of moral right and wrong. There should be no ethics 'trial' as our childen are not guinea pigs for the ideology of the inner city Left or the Right for that matter. Religious evangelism for Catholics is not one's own set of beliefs but is the same for every Catholic who wishes to be Catholic. All Catholics must agree with the Magisterium ( teaching authority of the Pope and bishops in communion with him). So personal beliefs for Catholics are simply not on. Thiest beleifs , for Catholics, are based on both faith and reason ( see Fides Et Ratio of Pope John Paul II which is official teaching on this from the Vatican website as the primary source for validity and reliability). The assumption made thatonly non-theists can be reasonable and scientific is a gross and false presumption against theists.
'Observation' of changing communtiy beliefs gives no green light to non-theists to dictate that their form of ethics must simply be accepted by parents who decide against it. Parental rights to not having their children's minds affecte by non theist ethics and 'values' must be upheld at all times.

The author is right.
Religion should be eliminated from the classrooms.
In its place should be evidence based learning, concentrating on gender studies, gay studies, racism studies, victimology, etc.
The sort of stuff that will make us globally competitive.
What's that?
They're already being progressively implemented into the curriculum?
That's alright then.

"I think it well established that universities and many schools are predominately made up of left-wing academics, many of whom are quite open about it, and many of whom are also quite socialist, Marxist or feminist.

"Their type of ethics would be quite different to anyone else’s, and many also seem to have considerable difficulty in believing in anything greater than themselves" said Vanna, and McReal is wondering about evangelical school principals.

Vanna, I have no idea which university you go to, but there is hardly any 'leftwing' anything going on at all anymore, just middle-of-the-road middleclass humdrum 'values'.

Academics are now mostly casuals, and fear rocking the boat.

Almost none of them would know how to speak to the world outside their cloisters, so they are a spent and worthless force, mostly.... schools... well, they are hardly havens for 'academics' are they?

'Journeyman sausage stuffer', is about the best they reach.

Yes, McReal, our schools are over-run by evangelical classroom teachers and principals... the public schools I mean.

Scripture Union even openly boasts about its 'network of Christian teachers' taking orders from SU instead of the departments.

You should visit those two sites the author put links to, and wonder why the AEU and state teacher unions are supporting chaplains and 'religion' in schools when they all have very clear, simple, policies supporting 'secular' schools.

A real mystery.

Webby, Catholics are so scared of living in Australia that they have their own schools to go to. Isn't that the best place for them if life in a secular school is to be so very hard?

A secular state is part of the baggage that goes with living in a democracy, otherwise you end up living in a nation run by gods, through 'special people' who 'know' how to understand what their god wants....like Pell, Houston, Rudd, Abbott, Wallace and Jensen...who get it horribly wrong at times, like the rest of we mortals do.

Try the Taliban if you want a non secular state, and maybe you can give up your place here for someone who prefers democracy to theocracy?

Blue Cross, you're prejudiced and it's good that you are showing your honesty. Having Catholics schools is about educting the whole person and includes Catholic Faith as part of our beliefs in Jesus Christ and His teaching Church. Catholic schools continue to grwo whilst public schools decrease. This is through choice. I do however believe in State schools to alwasy have their fair share of funding and funding growth based upon the proportion of the population who choice to use the public system. I support both the Catholic and public systems and thankfully one system is not being disadvantaged greatly against the other. he Catholic system of schools saves the taxpapyers money because we Catholics subsidise our own kids through school fees. I support cutting taxpayer dollars to the wealthiest schools as advocated by Mark Latham when he was the ALP leader and disagrred with Cardinal Pell at the time. We working class Catholics who are Labor people like myself play fair to all sides- public and private. I hope that you Blue Cross will one day be so magnanimous. I have no prblems with a secualr Australia so long as our Catholic Faith and our living out the Faith, especially in education ( religious education lessons in both State and Catholic schools) is left alone and allowed as part of our human rights to practice our religion. We also seek to knock back ethics classes that are contrary to our beliefs in objective values, virtue as opposed to some of the relativist and situational 'values' of secularists. We Catholics are always happy to pay taxes and to support both public and Catholic education. I am opposed to the Coalition version of 'choice' and the kinds of funding to the wealthy schools. I have no time for Jensen and his version of history that is not sympathetic to the Catholics. I also do not accept your nonsense about comparing Catholics to the Taliban. Catholic teaching does not accept theocracy. You might like to try Calvin's Switzerland for that theocratic, anti-Catholic model. Go and learn some history instead of fantasy please.

Webby - why don't you just send your kids to a Catholic school? They're heavily subsidised by the rest of us anyway.

Failing that, there's Sunday School, Mass, self-flagellation, whatever.

Now that I think of it, there's probably a case to be made that the State should require that religious schools in receipt of taxpayer funding provide a secular philosophy/ethics subject in their required teaching.

On Principals - my youngest daughter attended a Qld State School in an upmarket Brisbane suburb, where the Principal was (and still is, as far as I know) an open happyclapper. Hence, a 'Happy Chappy' at my kid's school, together with an approach to RE that relegated my self-professed atheist daughter to the back of the classroom while some godbothering bitch glared at her - until I interceded and secured access to the school library during 'scripture' classes.

Now that she's happily at high school, my daughter continues to experience, read and learn and is even more self-determinedly atheist. And she continues to astonish me: she's joined the Air Force Cadets... ye gads!

The Blue Cross,
One of the great problems facing education is lack of performance pay or a bonus system, and one of the reasons that teachers give for not wanting performance pay, is that when it has been tried, teachers cheated on the system.

We have teachers continuously saying that they work for the common good, but at the first opportunity, they ask for more and more taxpayer’s money.

When given taxpayer’s money, the first thing they are likely to do is spend that money offshore by buying imports from other countries.

We have teachers continuously trying to hide facts and data about schools, with the excuse that schools cannot be compared.

We have many in the education system saying that they have an excellent system, when in international tests, Australian students are now below world average.

We have teachers saying that falling student marks are because of “socio-economic” issues, when in fact Australia had 18 years of continuous growth.

We have numerous feminists in universities in schools that have no interest in the male gender, which means these teachers have no interest in 50% of the students.

And now, there are certain people who believe that teachers should teach ethics.

Webby... how amusing... you are clearly one-eyed i favour of Catholic madrassahs, and yet dare to suggest I am prejudiced!

"Catholic schools continue to grow whilst public schools decrease. This is through choice," so you say.

Well, last time I heard about these exclusionist zones from society they were growing, but not with Roman Catholic children, who continue to be sent to public schools because their parents are too poor (or intelligent, or both) to send their children to them. It is not 'choice', a hollow phrase from Howard's era, carried on happily by the likes of Rudd, Swan and Tanner, but the creation of education as yet another commodity, and a consumer item.

A brief scan through the MySchool page told me that the Vatican schools here were doing very poorly, worse than the public schools, so.... what is the idea of 'choosing' a poor school to send your 'investment' to, pray tell?

As for 'paying tax' hahaha, religion is exempt from tax, and pays none, making your glorious church a drain on our society, to the tune of billions of dollars a year.... so please don't bother with the Furphy... 'private schools save tax'. A complete untruth.

CJM... Please.... there is NO.... NO... RE in Qld public schools, and NEVER has been... (see p.2).

CJM.... (p.2).... It is Religious Instruction, or RI, NOT RE. Please alter your memory banks and update your dictionary. As for intervening... yes, ED Qld, and Bligh, are happy to totally ignore the law of the state, and allow schools to break-the-law on this matter. Why?

I'd save your pennies and buy her out of anything to do with the armed forces... they are hotbeds of coercion, full of 'religious' people who think they serve their god in killing others. Just look at the goose that runs the ACL.

Vanna.... "One of the great problems facing education is lack of performance pay or a bonus system"... absolute codswallop. Do we expect nurses to be on performance pay, or bonuses... or coppers.... this is just another empty, albeit popular, nonsense from capitalists and unthinking neo-libs.

The single biggest problem facing education is the total lack of quality managers. There should be no 'under performers' tolerated, in any industry. That is solely a management issue. And if teachers 'cheated' in trials, then that was because they had dodgy managers too.

Anyway, look at The Storm fiasco.... 'bonus payments' seem to have undone that crew, although, as with schools, poor managers are to blame.

Of course, poor training, a lack of 'being a profession', very badly designed university courses (also victims of the capitalist themes that you describe), unreasonable expectations on young people, dim witted parents too scared to say boo!, and stupid politicians all have to be added to the mix, but overall, 'management' is totally lacking in 'education'.

BTW.... there are far more women at uni than men, so men hardly make up 50% of the cohort.

Webby and others: The point of my paper is that basic human decency is part of the 'message'children learn(or at least it should be)in their general education: respect for each other and fair play especially in sport, but also in subjects such as social science, English literature; critical thinking particularly in science, maths and history, etc. An understanding of the international human rights documents would provide a great source of 'ethics' education. Children are also rightly exposed to a range of personal philosophical doctrines about the meaning of life and other cosmologies in a non-sectarian way in some government schools. You are wrong to think that there is an obligation on the state to teach religion: the right is simply for for everyone to be free to follow their own religion, to educate their children accordingly if they wish, and for others to be free from the imposition of the religions of others. State education is supposed to be secular (except, of course in Queensland, but that is another matter...).

The Blue Cross maintains that I misread the intended message of the author (Meg Wallace). I regret that I gave that impression. I fully agree with the statement that all students should be exposed to the benefits of evidence-based reasoning. The four R's: reading, (w)riting, (a)rithmetic, and reasoning! The point I was trying to make is that it is not evangelising to promote the skills of critical thinking in education. The word evangelising is soaked in religious connotations, that is accepting statements on FAITH alone. Evangelists are an irritating subset of the human population, and their methods of trying to "convert" people are intensely annoying.

The real problem is that we are stuck with an Australian citizenry that pays lip service to religion, even though Australians, to my observation, are amongst the most secular-inclined people on the planet. Yet many Australians are at least tolerant of religion, knowing that religious beliefs give comfort to many people.

Australian society is increasingly waking up to the hypocrisy of much religion. The current scene where the Catholic church is fighting a hopeless cause to cover up the activities of pedophile priests is a classic example. As John Ure (former commander of the NSW North Region Major Crime Squad has recently said: "... church leaders and their supporters are arguing that school students cannot have ethics instruction without a religious (Christian) component. It could be persuasively argued that church leaders who have betrayed their Christian community by their actions in dealing (or failing to deal) with pedophile clergy have foregone any claim to ethical superiority."

So for many Australians, scripture lessons (promoting biblical inerrancy, "souls", the afterlife and other paranormal beliefs) invading public (state) schools are anachronistic and should, ideally, be replaced with secular ethics classes. But that ideal is unlikely to occur any time soon. In the meantime, at least give the parents and their kids a choice.

Dear Meg,
Thanks for a worthy contribution to a delicate debate.

I speak as a parent who wants to send my kid to a state school (for a variety of reasons). In today’s pluralistic society, he’s going to experience a mixture of philosophies and viewpoints. Overall, these enhance rather than detract from the richness of the public school experience.

Christians have made a significant contribution to the country for generations. They vote and pay taxes. They support their local schools and have a stake and a heritage in the public school system, as much as anyone else. So they don’t want to be the ones to feel marginalised or excluded.

I think you need to define further what you mean by certain terms and concepts: ‘secular’ education, ‘separation of church and state’, and ‘evidence-based reasoning’. You might say that the meaning of ‘separation of church and state’ might soon be further defined in the High Court, but I think the phrase is a bit jingoistic, and I don’t think it appears in anyone’s constitution.

You might grant some very positive and well meaning definitions for these words. But if or when we find these words being offered under the banner of atheism, then you can expect some concern from Christians wary of the Trojan horse.

To totally ignore religion, or treat it as something that has no place in daily life, is one way of teaching atheism by default.