I am sick to the back teeth of hearing about the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School. The spoilt whingeing of the metropolitan haute bourgeoisie.
Meanwhile, not that the “national” media have noticed (despite the efforts to alert them on some of our parts), Durham County Council has cut all subsidised transport to “faith” schools, effectively killing them off. County Durham contains four Catholic state secondary schools, and there are several more that I expect serve parts of the county of which they were historically, and in at least one case quite recently, part. The North being the North, there is no other type of faith school in the state secondary sector, although there are a very few Anglican fee-charging ones, mostly in Durham itself. So this decision constitutes a direct attack on the Catholic Church.
The County Council expects this to save one million pounds by 2015. We had all rather expected this to die the death, due to the portfolio holder's practising Catholicism, the predominance of Catholics among the voters in many wards, and so forth. But no such luck. So, is there anyone out there who could stump up a million pounds (as would be preferable), or a quarter of a million per year over four years?
I have been active both in politics and in education in these parts for many years, and I could very easily make all the necessary arrangements, including as much discretion as the benefactor or benefactors desired, but the urgency of this situation is now impossible to overstate – davidaslindsay@hotmail.com.
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This decision by the County Council is indeed an attack on one section of the community; and one that already pays more than its fair share of costs towards the education of children in this country. State schools are entirely funded from taxation, of which ALL people have paid - including Catholic taxpayers. Catholic schools are voluntary aided schools and the Catholic community has to pay at least 10% towards the cost of their schools – even though we have already paid our taxes towards the education of ALL children in this country. It may be more than 10% but you will know this better than me.
ReplyDeleteAnd it is not only the 10% funding we have to find on capital projects; once they are built we then have to maintain them at our expense which is not something asked of state schools where all expenditure is covered by taxation – including Catholic taxes. So, we not only pay towards the cost in its entirety of children attending state schools but also have to pay many extra costs for our own schools. I have no problem with this but why should our taxes, and the extra financial contribution we make, not offset the travelling costs for our children when we are already saving the taxpayers much more than this by building and maintaining our own schools. This is a nasty, ignorant, bigoted, and vindictive policy targeted at one section of the community that is already paying more than other taxpayers for the education of our children. If Catholic schools are closed down then the children will obviously have to attend state schools at which, presumably, there are not enough places. So, either more schools will have to be built – which will cost much more than 1 million pounds, or, they will have to take over the Catholic school buildings (paying compensation?) and incur ALL the maintenance costs – which will cost much more per annum than £250,000. This is the economics of the madhouse and is an indication of the short-sighted, ignorant logic (if it can be called that) of our elected representatives. I hope, just before the next elections, you publish all the names of our councillors who voted for this scheme and their wards.
It will have been the entire Labour Group, because it will have passed in Group. But if I can find out who voted which way in Group (rarely recorded - it is usually just a show of hands), then I will.
ReplyDeleteWhen you say involved in education, what exactly do you mean?
ReplyDeleteAnd do you accept paypal?
Eight years as a governor of a primary school, eight years as a governor of a Catholic comprehensive school, supply teaching (I might still be on the books, I really should check; it was just that something else came up at one time, so I stopped doing it), college tutor at Durham, previously the same at two other colleges there until pressure of other things &c, SCR President...
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't advise using PayPal for these sorts of sums of money. Email me - davidaslindsay@hotmail.com
With your connections around here, you could get this sorted out in a few days.
ReplyDeleteIf I had a million pounds.
ReplyDelete