There was a particularly interesting story in yesterday's paper that the blog feels the need to promote this morning, although - rightly enough - it ended up further down the book as tributes to Robin Cook poured in on Saturday night.
It turns out that over 40 per cent of sponsors of the government's flagship Academy schools are faith-based charities, Church of England figures or philanthropic Evangelicals. Some of them are Creationists. It would, of course, be unfair to pre-judge the type of education that will be given in schools that haven't even been built yet. And the Academies will still teach the national curriculum, so literal interpretation of the bible should still generally be the province of RE lessons.
But Academies are allowed to state an 'ethos' - guiding principles according to which the school will be run and, presumably, according to which parents and students can be judged in the competition for places. The ethos statement of the new Grace Academy in Solihull, for example, says:
As the Academy will be run according to Christian principles, great emphasis will be placed on the development of their moral character, values and spiritual foundation.
Since these days there's a big debate going on about the nature of Britishness and the need to foster inclusive, tolerant and universal notions of national identity, maybe we should throw into the mix the question of whether or not we want the next generation of elite state schools to be faith-based?
For a glimpse of the future, check out the US, where team anti-Darwin has fans in high places. And they have a constitution to keep education secular.
