It’s Wednesday, and that means Jesus and Mo Day, the strip that got this site banned in Pakistan. (I’m still fuming about that one.) Today’s strip, called “taxes,” refers to the UK, where “faith schools” are indeed supported by the taxpayer. It’s absolutely on the mark as Mo reveals the scam:
For U.S. readers – Coming to a School near you.
Is the word “to” missing in the text of the first frame? Surely it can’t be.
Luv it though. Good stuff.
It’s been fixed on the J&M website.
Hope this one doesn’t get you banned in Blighty.
T.I.F.s for N.E.C.s. There must be fifty shades of dark money.
I would say that in the UK any ‘faith school’ that teaches discrimination against an out-group should not get tax-funds, just as religious schools in the US that don’t do so do not get tax-exempt status.
I think religious schools that operate under a church ministry qualify as “tax-exempt organizations” under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. But such schools are prohibited from using any public funding they may receive to proselytize religion.
You ask me, the law regarding these matters is a stinkin’ mess.
In Ontario the Catholic school system is funded by the province in exactly the same way as the public system.
There is no push from anywhere so far as I can see to end this horrible practice.
Same in NZ for Catholic (and other religious) schools. And we still have Christian Religious Instruction in primary schools. It’s appalling.
One of my nieces is at an Anglican private school, and her sister is at a private Anglican high school. Their parents send them there because they’re the best schools in the region, but the fees for both would be substantially higher if not for government support.
They have to follow the national curriculum, and maintain certain standards to get government funding, but it’s still wrong.
The government’s excuse is it saves them the cost of building and maintaining the schools they’d have to provide.
Well, nice to know there’s something the US is more secular about than are CA and NZ! So far, anyway.
When we lived in a rural bedroom community of Ottawa in the early ’90s, there were four school boards with four separate school systems. These were the four combinations of Anglophone/Francophone and Catholic/Non-Catholic. Because the population density was too low to have four each kind of preschool, grade school and high school in each hamlet, there were a lot of school buses involved. A lot.
Even though our Francophone connection was tenuous, we were encouraged to enroll our kids in the French immersion program there to help keep their numbers up. It worked out well for the kids.
This is all a result of negotiations required to make Canadian Confederation work. Drawing the Ontario – Québec boundary meant leaving minority populations on either side that didn’t want to move or change.
Québec is now far less religious than it was. In fact, less than any of the other Provinces. What does concern them a lot is having English replace French. Cultural invasion by US media is probably the biggest source of this. TV, movies and the Internet are now joined by video games. Who knows where it will all end.