Talk:Parochial school

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I'd like to see some authority for

"....with most of the public against the idea. Also a significant part of the population is against faith based schools being legal at all, citing potential damages to a multicultural society as their main reason."

Avalon 21:42, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I think this poll is what you are after.

[edit] US usage

I'd like to see some authority for "used to distinguish a school operated by a Catholic church from one operated by a Protestant church". Wl219 00:32, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

There is none. In Milwaukee we have both Catholic and Lutheran systems, and both are referred to as "parochial schools." If folks don't object, I'm gonna delete that passage soon.--Orange Mike 20:54, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't know about "authority," but here in California, I have never heard any non-Catholic religious school called a parochial school. Protestant variants are usually distinguished by either denomination or the word "Christian," Jewish schools are usually called "Hebrew," and Greek/Russian/Eastern Orthodox schools are called "Orthodox."Hmadrone 17:51, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

The next sentence seems to completely contradict this point anyway, saying that all denominations use the term "parochial schools". Walton monarchist89 12:15, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Not all Catholic schools are parochial either; here in Philly, "parochial" tends to mean "operated by the diocese", and there are plenty of both Catholic "parochial" and "private" schools in the area. Krimpet 06:00, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Technically a "parochial school" means a school operated by a parish. Within the Catholic church, the term parochial does, as Krimpet pointed out, distinguish between a diocean school and a school run by an order (such as Jesuits, Paulists, etc). I believe that the phrase "parochial school" has different meanings by region, however - like Hmadrone, here in California I've never heard of a non-Catholic school that was referred to as parochial.

I thin it's more fair to state that this is a regional distinction. In some regions (California) "parochial" is used to refer specifically to a Catholic school. In the Midwest and in New York, a "parochial" school may be Protestant or Jewish. The passage should be changed to reflect the regional nature of this distinction, rather than lumping the whole U.S. into a single use. Mike 11:26, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Since the references to non-Roman Catholic usage were removed, I edited the section to emphasize that this term is not RC-exclusive everywhere in the US. Hopefully the new wording will be palatable to everyone. Petronivs 15:26, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Arbiter! --Orange Mike 19:36, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

A quick google found this book, among hundreds of other references: The effectiveness of Lutheran elementary and secondary schools as agencies of Christian education; an empirical evaluation study of the impact of Lutheran parochial schools on the beliefs, attitudes, and behavior of Lutheran youth by Ronald L Johnstone; St. Louis: School for Graduate Studies, Concordia Seminary; 1966. --Orange Mike | Talk 13:49, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Organization

The US and UK definitions should receive the same treatment, and be listed in alphabetical order, as should all subsequent country-based discussions in this article. I'll make that change.

The term 'parochial school' is completely unknown in the UK. The term 'faith school' is now in the Oxford English Dictionary as of UK origin. The new UK faith schools are nothing to do with parishes. I suggest that faith school is a broader term and it would be more appropriate to redirect parochial school to faith school, and explain the differences.Chemical Engineer 17:47, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

This comes as a relief, actually. I was having extreme problems trying to distinguish (research) schools run by dioceses, those run by the parish, and those run by an order. While it appears that we are stuck with these longer, awkward strings of words, at least, now, they are no longer ambiguous within Wikipedia. Nor are we "standardizing" to some arbitrary nomenclature which won't be understood outside a certain region. Student7 18:43, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that the UK requires a "country-based definition" since the term ins't in use here. "Faith School" which is a term in UK education also redirects here. Might it not be best to create an article entitled "Faith School" and use that to deal with the UK issue (and other countries where the term is used). It could include at the top a link to the Parochial School article if this were to be considered useful. 195.172.14.80 10:54, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I can appreciate that this seems reasonable to you. My problem is that it tends to separate similar articles based on a superficial linguistic colloquialism. Maybe not as bad as separating articles on "lifts" and "elevators," but you get my drift! My suggestion is to take the most common definition and use it, explaining in the lead that either faith schools or parochial schools are both covered in the article. Having them in the same article is going to be illuminating for the "other" persuasion. I know all about parochial schools. Why would I want to know more? I would be interested in "faith schools" but I'm not about to exit the current article just to find out! Student7 12:27, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I had a long winded explanation of why we should not change the dictionary meaning of parochial. Lost is when trying to save anything because of a website way above this section that was since put on the blacklist! It would not let me add anything until I cleared up that problem. So I lost my train of thought. Anyway, I changed the front per the dictionary. Countries with different names should probably have their own article. For just sharing a two bit intro it's hardly worth it. Student7 (talk) 22:00, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

'Lift' and 'elevator' are different names for the same thing, but 'faith school' and 'parochial school' are not the same. The definition of a parochial school given in the lead, which I assume is the common US usage, doesn't correspond at all well to the UK usage of 'faith school' since (1) nearly all state schools, not just faith schools, engage in religious education; (2) Faith schools are typically not run by parishes; (3) Faith schools are typically neither grammar nor high schools. Parochial schools are a type of faith school, so we should either have 'faith school' as the primary article or have separate articles. --Duncan Keith (talk) 13:26, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

This may not be germane to the discussion, but the references I find to "faith schools" in the UK, all refer to secondary or primary schools. I probably misunderstood what was being said. Student7 (talk) 20:17, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I guess this another difference in terminology! In England, grammar and high schools are types of secondary schools. Grammar schools are typically selective. 'High school' is not widely used, and where it is used it means different things. FWIW faith schools comprise about 36% of primary state schools and 17% of secondary state schools. Anyway, since there seems to be consensus I'll go ahead and move the UK stuff to Faith school. --Duncan Keith (talk) 23:06, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Peter Vardy

The allegations that Peter Vardy has introduced creationism into the curriculum at his schools have been shown to be false: For example: http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,,1963511,00.html

As such I am removing the section paragraph regarding Peter Vardy and Creationalism on the basis that the it is irrelevant - the actions of an individual science teacher does not constitute standard practice in the United Kingdom. --129.67.116.18 16:35, 17 October 2007 (UTC)