Faith School Menace? Page #3

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Well, if he had a cough,

you would get him some cough mixture

or just generally feed his ego.

That's not too serious bribery,

was there anything

more serious than that?

I...

It got to the stage where it

was sort of hinted at

that things like, you know,

the church roof needed fixing

and, you know, the fee of 5,000

was sort of bandied about.

5,000?

That if you sort of contributed

that amount,

your child was guaranteed

a place in school.

If you gave 5,000 to the church,

you would get your child

into school?

Yeah, yeah. Oh, absolutely.

It's not money to him,

but if his church looks like

its getting bums on seats

on Sunday, erm,

if the coffers are full,

he's doing a good job, isn't he?

He actually said that to me.

It's about bums on seats.

We contacted the priest in question.

He denied these claims

and stated he had nothing to do

with admissions, which were

dealt with by an independent body.

Of other faiths,

the Church of England told us

that not every admission

to their schools

is based on parents' religion

and it hopes no parent feels

compelled to worship

to secure their child a place.

The Board of Deputies of British

Jews makes no apology that parents

must demonstrate a commitment to

the values and ethos of Judaism.

But why are parents

who hold no faith

sending their children

to faith schools?

It seems to be about results.

League tables show that,

of primaries last year

with perfect SATs scores,

two thirds were church-run.

So what's going on?

Are faith schools better?

Surely God isn't

helping pupils in exams?

Through a massive analysis of half

a million primary school pupils,

this man has now has

the authoritative answer.

We can compare children

who live in the same postcode,

so you're comparing houses next

to each other, and if you do this,

and compare children in these

very similar circumstances,

one going to a faith school, one not,

you find actually the rate at which

these children progress

is very, very similar.

There's not much of a performance

advantage measured on these terms.

The upshot is that

all the performance advantage

we observe for faith schools is to do

with the motivation of the parents,

it's to do with the background,

you know, their wealth.

So the evidence suggests

that the idea

that improved results in faith

schools are due to faith is a myth.

It's about the social level of

pupils and the pushiness of parents

prepared to jump through hoops

to get their children selected.

Do we conclude from this

that parents are wasting their time

struggling to get their children

into a faith school?

Looking at the data we've got,

that's the conclusion

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