How to regulate faith schools

Abstract

Should the state collaborate with religious organisations in the provision of schooling – and if it does, how much room is there for compromise on curriculum, pedagogy, staffing and admissions? How should the regulation of state‐maintained faith schools differ from the regulation of other state‐maintained schools? How, if at all, should the state regulate faith‐based education in the independent sector and in the home? In this groundbreaking pamphlet, Matthew Clayton, Andrew Mason, Adam Swift and Ruth Wareham tackle these questions head on. They advocate an outright ban on (confessional) religious instruction in state‐funded schools, along with a universal entitlement to an adequate programme of civic, religious, ethical and moral education. They argue that it is acceptable for schools to have a ‘faith ethos’, and to select up to 50% of pupils on the basis of faith, as long as steps are taken to safeguard the development of children’s autonomy. And they propose that faith schools in the independent sector should only retain their charitable status if they submit to the same regulation as those in receipt of state funding. How to regulate faith schools is a bold, compelling and timely intervention in the public debate about faith‐based education in the UK. The author’s policy recommendations are coherent, cogent and sensitive to the real‐world constraints under which education policy is made. The result is a powerful regulatory framework that is both rigorously justified and practically feasible.

The Political Morality of School Composition: The Case of Religious Selection

“…Or it might require a weighted lottery with weightings aimed at achieving ‘better’ compositions. Or schools might be given incentives to achieve those compositions, such as a ‘religious diversity premium’ analogous to the pupil premium currently attached to children from disadvantaged backgrounds (Clayton et al 2018, 36) 19…”

“… 17 A more modest view, which we find more plausible, is that the right extends only to having one's child attend a school with a particular religious ethos or character; ‘instruction’, in school, in a particular faith is a different matter. See Clarke and Woodhead (2015) and Clayton et al (2018). …”

Educational Goods Reconsidered: A Response

“…Our book acknowledges that it talks a lot more about how to produce and distribute good things in people's lives than about other possible aims-such as respecting their moral status-or about the permissible means by which those good things may be produced and distributed. And in other work, one of us has gone on to extend our approach to consider more fully how taking into account non-consequentialist constraints on decision-making affects what should be decided, all things considered (see Clayton et al, 2018Clayton et al, , 2019. But these are not Tillson's concern.…”

“…2. For an attempt to apply a revised version of the framework to the regulation of religious schooling, see Clayton et al (2018). 3.…”

Writing Justice/Performing Injustice: Reflections on Research, Publicity, and the Birmingham Trojan Horse Affair

“…to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions." Indeed, in the wake of the Trojan Horse affair, Clayton et al (2018) have argued against this understanding, proposing instead that children should have the right to protection (safeguarding) from the beliefs of their parents: "Current legislation," they write, "is too permissive to parents and insufficiently attentive to children's interests, in particular their interest in autonomy" (2018, 9).…”