THE SCENARIO of the article “Bishops threaten to cut off schools” (TES, November 6) would be comical if it did not concern children and parents’ right to choose the education best suited to those children.
The church makes great play of parents being first educators but here we have a case where celibate men who, as far as we know, do not have children in the system, are trying to dictate the future status of schools to which parents have opted to send their children, often at great personal cost.
When GM status was first implemented, meetings were called and votes taken by parents as to what they wanted for their schools. The results were legal and binding. What has happened in the intervening period so that a group of non-accountable, un-elected (by the people) men can dictate to governing bodies that their schools will be excluded from the church (diocese) if they do not revert to voluntary-aided status?
Do the parents get a legal hearing in this? After all, they provide the children, pay the taxes that provide the schools and also in many cases pay into the church coffers to maintain diocesan infrastructures (including some lavish clerical lifestyles) and all with precious little voice.
The current GM schools have a majority of foundation governors, appointed by the self-same bishops, what’s the matter guys, don’t you trust the people you and your trustees appoint? Or is this yet another in a long line of instances of the iron hand of authoritycontrol revealing a church lamentably out of touch with modern times?
Mrs C E Jones 23 Manchester Drive Leegomery, Telford
