I will trade you faith-based schools (many of which charge fees) and the National Curriculum for private schools.

Where we live, we had to pay to attend a local, non-denominational junior school. All the "state" schools are denominational or very denominational, with church-attending children from outside the borough taking precedence over locals who don't. Other religions take precedence over families that have no allegiance. I know of one Jewish family who had to write a letter affirming the ascendency of Christ to educate their children. Our babysitter made a point of attending several churches because she cannot afford to send her daughter out of the borough. Since the buildings belong to the church, the council cannot change the school remit without buying them out. Europeans I know are astonished that children don't just go to the local school.

I fail to see why getting a decent education should depend on belonging to an established religion (Intelligent Design 101). The pathological case is Ulster, which is hardly a model for the rest of us.

And then there's the National Curriculum, which the good teachers that I know hate because it drives their teaching by numbers from Whitehall, rather than allowing them to address the needs of the children in front of them.

I would agree with banning faith based education if the alternative was non-faith based education. But I am afraid the alternative is secular faith based education.

Just to clarify the point. My argument was against religious control of schools, not against the teaching of religion in school

Regarding the point about allowing people to wear what they want to wear, I found an interesting site recently regarding the expectations of US First Ladies meeting with the Pope. Especially the required clothing. (And note that this applies to the female spouses of all heads of state.)

Here's a set of photos going back to Bess Truman on a web site dedicated to the social graces related to the US presidency.
http://eastwingrules.blogspot.com/2009/07/first-ladies-meeting-pope.html

In a different context or with backgrounds Photoshopped out these photos might be interpreted very differently.

Having been homeschooled, I have to disagree with banning homeschool. Every parent should have the freedom to choose an education for their children.

Were such a situation true, I would find it very difficult to swallow the fact that I have no choice but to send my (future) son to the sort of school dictated by the state. This is because I fully intend to classically educate any and all of my offspring and thereafter send them to a grammar school, and not to have that choice would really, really rile me. At the end of the day I would be a parent before I am a citizen, and I want what I think is best for my child.

In response to the Home Schools point. Parents do not live in isolation from the society of which they are a part. While there are honorable exceptions home schools in general allow cult like isolation. You can imagine a child growing up in rural isolation, with only their parents, or like minded parents for company during their key formative years. However well intentioned I doubt that is good for the child and I am really sure its bad for society.

This article is worth reading and ends as follows:

A properly civilised society would accept that while lovely little C of E schools were once an excellent place for children to learn about the religion that shaped their culture, art and laws, you can't have them without having the madrassa run by the mad mullah next door, and therefore, sadly, you can't have either, but have, instead, a system of compulsory state secular education, in which children learn to get on with people from all religious backgrounds and none, and are taught about all religions, but also that the culture of the country they're living in was, for 2,000 years, largely based on one.

But we, alas, are living in a country whose government believes that schools should be "free" – free to abandon the national curriculum, free to adopt any damned framework they fancy – and that parents should be free, with no state intervention at all, to teach their children whatever sexist, racist, dangerous, violent and yes, ill-mannered, nonsense that they like.

Hi - These are problematic conclusions. As history has shown the healthy civil societies depends on liberty and diversity. Statism has proven to fail over and over, particularly the insidious modern version of educational statism. Remember B. Franklin in 1775, “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Besides, the Internet changes everything. Trust me, no matter how hermetic you believe home, religious, charter and other forms of schooling are, junior has a way learning about everything. Meanwhile, the very worst of these options is widespread, comprehensive failed state schools, such as the LA (California) Unified school district where only 1 in 3 achieve a high school diploma. Schooling vouchers allow independent educators to bring to bear market forces on failed state schools and their greedy teachers unions. Meanwhile, let’s get to heart of the matter. It’s not the corner parochial school led by cheery Franciscan nuns. Their vows of poverty, chastity and love hurt no one. Rather, the problem are deliberate indoctrination centers (as mentioned)like Pakistani Madras and Wahhabists curricula and others that reject polytheism, democracy and constitutional frameworks. I would suggest a finer grain lens in determining schooling strategy in a modern civil society. It is not a zero-sum game. Sweeping, near-fascist bans never work and are counter-productive, simply forcing certain curricula underground. -j

John beat me to the point I was going to make in response to your response about homeschooling. Leaving the sticky issue of 'socialisation' aside, homeschooling, private (public) schools, charter schools - whatever the type of school is - are but channels through which curricula are fed.

As he said 'junior' has a way to learn about everything. Living proof here. Looking back, I wouldn't trade my curriculum for a public (state, whatever) school's. I wouldn't have studied Goethe or Milton or Marlowe or Spenser or Donne or Euclid, nor Theology or Philosophy or rudimentary Latin and Greek.

This isn't a question in which there is any perfect solution but let me make a few points

• You can't leave aside the sticky question of socialisation
• Parents, Churches etc still have plenty of time to educate and culturally socialise
• If educated parents have their children in the state system then the system is improved by parental pressure, if they can withdraw into a parallel system then the state system declines
• The private system perpetuates class differences and/or creates a new class devide
• There are better ways to achieve diversity

Hi - Good points and comments. I would only add that 'class differences' are only universally reviled by communists, statist and fascists. IMO, class not a uniform defect of civil society as long as it is highly permeable and polyvalent, or able to interact and combine across classes with ease. Also, it critically important not to confuse ‘class’ with ‘caste.’ Unfortunately, class is often used when caste is meant and vice versa. In a caste, members are deemed and predetermined to be alike, where as a ‘class’ has diverse members. Moving through the class systems, upward mobility, for example, is done with relative ease, and is a hallmark of thriving civil society, while moving from a caste system is practically impossible, by definition. Deliberate attempts at social engineering of class systems such as death taxes, affirmative action, or indeed, state schools, always fail in the long-term, often due to the principles of complexity. -j

The problem is that too often class does become caste. One of the few ways in which you can ensure social mobility is by equal access to health and education - hence my argument. As to social engineering I don't agree, and it can be a complex system management technique. Forcing mixed race education in the US, affirmative action programmes in companies like Unilever. I could go on.

And right on cue, here's an an article from the FT about the stagnating mobility of the US middle classes as they're priced out of health care and education.

And one might also add transport as necessary infrastucture.