In Britain, families go to church so kids can go to school

At St. Mary Abbots church in west London, Fr. Gillean Craig says he believes that few of the young families thronging his 300-strong Sunday congregation are there on false pretenses. And if they are, he says, what's the harm?

"God draws people to church for an unbelievable range of reasons," he says. "I don't think that the initial impetus is important. I'm not too worried."

But secularists are. In a country in which barely 1 in 10 regularly attend church, many are alarmed that the church holds such sway over education. And in a country in which segregation has become such a big issue, particularly of Muslim communities, there is concern that faith schools appear to encourage a form of apartheid.

"These schools are supposed to be promoting morality and a Christian ethos, and yet are encouraging parents to be dishonest in order to get their children in," says Terry Sanderson, vice president of the National Secular Society, which campaigns for religion to remain a private matter and not intrude into public policy.

"I really don't think this is what schools are about, recruiting for the church," he says. "Schools are there to educate children." Though faith schools are required to follow a national curriculum and teach about other religions, Mr. Sanderson says they barely disguise their efforts to indoctrinate. "The whole purpose of the single-faith school is to inculcate doctrine into pupils," he says.

Not so, say Church of England officials. "We are not teaching people to be Christians, we are following the national curriculum within a very strong Christian ethos," Father Craig says.

Canon John Hall, the Church of England's head of education, acknowledges that unlike publicly funded schools in the US, Anglican-faith schools have a distinctly Christian flavor and have daily worship. He dismisses the suggestion of segregation and points out that in less- populated parts of the country, Anglican schools boast a wider mix of pupils drawn from all parts of the community. "We are proud of the fact that we are, in our way, inclusive," he says.

Some secularists wanted the government to force faith schools to offer 25 percent of their places to pupils of other faiths. But having unveiled the policy, Education Secretary Alan Johnson suddenly renounced it last week, leaving church schools free to manage their admissions as before.

Professor Jackson, director of the religions and education research unit at Warwick University in Coventry, England, believes the 25-percent rule would have resulted in many faith schools – particularly oversubscribed Jewish and Catholic schools – having to turn away children from their own communities.

Meanwhile, despite her best efforts, Allen still is not assured of getting her daughter into her local church school. There are only 30 children in each grade, and siblings have priority. But whether her daughter gets in or not, Allen won't be quitting the church.

"It's been a really great way of getting into the community and getting to know people," she says. "You'll find very few people who get their kids into the school and then disappear.

"What the church has found is that the school is great for bringing young parents into church, who then stay."

Britain has 2,200 independent schools, which are privately owned and run. Students pay tuition to go there. Britain also has some 25,000 schools run by the state. They are generally of four types:

1. Community and foundation schools (about 15,000). Funding, staff, land, and admissions are controlled by local education authorities.

2. Faith schools (7,000). These are overwhelmingly Christian schools, but there are also 36 Jewish schools, seven Muslim ones, and two that are Sikh. They are funded by local education authorities, but some (so-called voluntary-aided faith schools) control admissions.

3. Specialist schools (2,500). These are akin to US "magnet" schools. Some pupils are admitted based on their aptitude in a school's particular specialty – such as arts, languages, mathematics, music or science.

4. Academies (only 12 so far, but the number is rising). These are partly funded by benefactors. Some admissions are made based on aptitude. Their curriculums are distinct from the national curriculums taught in other publicaly funded national schools.

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