School patronage

recedite

Schools fit for a Republic! Fintan makes a valid point, but politics is "the art of the possible".
Like Michael Collins' treaty, there is always the possibility of converting what is possible now, into something more radical later.
And if not, its still an improvement on what we had.

expectationlost

recedite wrote: »

Schools fit for a Republic! Fintan makes a valid point, but politics is "the art of the possible".
Like Michael Collins' treaty, there is always the possibility of converting what is possible now, into something more radical later.
And if not, its still an improvement on what we had.

so including the schools that were already in process of opening during the life of this government so far we had maybe 2% of schools change to less religious ones.

that's not good enough

the state should developing a system for secular schools rather then concreting religion into these new community schools

expectationlost

here's one of the founder of educate together, a private school provider wants to keep schools private http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2012/1102/1224326036345.html doesn't really address the issue at all she's says slow and steady change, but as fintan argues we'll never have a fair system with the changes quinn is introducing.

most of the comments take her up on that.

recedite

expectationlost wrote: »

educate together, a private school provider wants to keep schools private

A private school is usually defined as one that charges fees.

expectationlost

recedite wrote: »

A private school is usually defined as one that charges fees.

but in reality all our schools are private

recedite

They all ask for some voluntary contribution, but they won't throw out the kid if you don't pay, and its a tiny amount compared to a fee paying school.

Here's what I would do if I were in charge;
1. Poll the parents and ask them what patronage they want. Reassign schools accordingly.
2. Reduce and then eliminate the State subventions to fee paying schools. If they want an unfair advantage, let them pay unfairly for it. Let them be completely privately funded.
3. After a while, when a model or models of secular state school has emerged, which is acceptable to everyone, and thus more economical to run where populations are dispersed, start reducing state subventions to other special interest kinds of school, such that they become more expensive to attend, in effect partially or fully privatising them.

expectationlost

im not taking about fees, all our schools are already private organisations, there is only one model of public school that would be economic to run a secular one.

what you mean after a while? this was quinn chance to introduce such a model.

recedite

We live in a democratic republic, but its more democracy than republic.
If the majority of people in a new housing estate want a religious education for their kids, they are being given a new religious school.

If Quinn introduced a new type state school, it would be competing for parental votes with ET and VEC. Splitting the vote gives the advantage to the RC lobby.

We could take a more more republican view, and just say all public schools are to be secular, like it or not; its for everyone's good.
Even then, we would have to avoid having a state monopoly (corrupt, unresponsive and inefficient) so there would still be a choice of patrons.

France is a proper republic. They take the separation of church and state seriously. There is no religious indoctrination, or even symbolism, allowed in public schools.
About 15% of the population attend private (mostly religious) schools. They may get some state subvention depending on how much they emphasise the National Curriculum, but basically they are responsible for paying their own teachers and their own fuel bills.

robindch

Bannasidhe wrote: »

expectationlost wrote: »

what the hell has single sex schools got to do with atheism, can not one thread stick to topic on here?

The evidence would suggest No.

Anyone for pizza?

BTW, Paulie's Pizza (Upper Grand Canal st, D4), does what are -- IMNSHO -- the best pizzas in Dublin. Their oven runs at around 450-480 degrees celsius and their slow-rise dough is outstanding. Needless to say, they don't even offer pineapple as an extra.

joseph brand

robindch wrote: »

Anyone for pizza?

BTW, Paulie's Pizza (Upper Grand Canal st, D4), does what are -- IMNSHO -- the best pizzas in Dublin. Their oven runs at around 450-480 degrees celsius and their slow-rise dough is outstanding. Needless to say, they don't even offer pineapple as an extra.

No pineaple? Sacreligious!

coffee_cake

Why would you eat pineapple on pizza, just no

Would love some now but am being healthy at the moment
Though walking past those o'connell street doughnuts...

Bannasidhe

robindch wrote: »

Anyone for pizza?

BTW, Paulie's Pizza (Upper Grand Canal st, D4), does what are -- IMNSHO -- the best pizzas in Dublin. Their oven runs at around 450-480 degrees celsius and their slow-rise dough is outstanding. Needless to say, they don't even offer pineapple as an extra.

Do they deliver to Cork?

I have no kitchen at the moment and am looking for some good takeaway for tonight's dinner .

robindch

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Do they deliver to Cork?

Not to my knowledge, but do them them a call.

joseph brand

bluewolf wrote: »

Why would you eat pineapple on pizza, just no

Would love some now but am being healthy at the moment
Though walking past those o'connell street doughnuts...

Is that the little hut with the fantastic aroma, selling sugary ring doughnuts? It's impossible for me to pass it and not end up with sugar-covered lips.

Obliq

bluewolf wrote: »

Why would you eat pineapple on pizza, just no

More pineapple blasphemy Will you people never listen? Do I have to show you the consequences AGAIN?

coffee_cake

joseph brand wrote: »

Is that the little hut with the fantastic aroma, selling sugary ring doughnuts? It's impossible for me to pass it and not end up with sugar-covered lips.

Yes I successfully avoided it while running out nearby at lunchtime today!

robindch wrote: »

I used to avoid doing that with snowflake -- six years old last month -- but following your advice, am currently handing out small chocolate coins for good questions or jokes, while excellent jokes and especially, questions I can't answer definitively, get a large chocolate coin. Coins which she has to share, of course

BTW, how did Romans light their fires? She suggested rubbing sticks which I recall from somewhere, but I assume they just kept a fire going somewhere in the larger places too. I don't recall that they used flint. Suggestions welcome.

They could keep a firelog going I suppose?
Bow drill friction?

Bannasidhe

robindch wrote: »

I used to avoid doing that with snowflake -- six years old last month -- but following your advice, am currently handing out small chocolate coins for good questions or jokes, while excellent jokes and especially, questions I can't answer definitively, get a large chocolate coin. Coins which she has to share, of course

BTW, how did Romans light their fires? She suggested rubbing sticks which I recall from somewhere, but I assume they just kept a fire going somewhere in the larger places too. I don't recall that they used flint. Suggestions welcome.

Short answer - they didn't. They made slaves do it.

Less short answer - apartments didn't have their own kitchens so there were designated communal cooking areas/bakeries (still happens in N. Africa) where the fires were never allowed to go out. It would have been one families job to tend these.

In large houses/Villas there would be several cooking fires burning all the time (tended by slaves) - these would be used to light oil lamps etc.


I introduced an incentive called 'The Helper Lollypop' for the grandkids (now aged 6 and 3) - they have to be exceptionally helpful and extraordinarily good (i.e no thumping each other for any reason/ no tormenting the dogs/do a few 'chores' of the push the button to turn on the washing machine when Nana gives the nod variety/tidy up their toys when asked) and it's amazing how well it works - esp. since neither of them actually seems to like lollypops and the 4 I have awarded over the years ended up in the bin after a few token licks. But they love the idea...

PopePalpatine

robindch wrote: »

Anyone for pizza?

BTW, Paulie's Pizza (Upper Grand Canal st, D4), does what are -- IMNSHO -- the best pizzas in Dublin. Their oven runs at around 450-480 degrees celsius and their slow-rise dough is outstanding. Needless to say, they don't even offer pineapple as an extra.

I dunno about that, there's a cafe in the Dunne's Stores in Blanch that does excellent pizza.

Might as well try Paulie's though.

recedite

Dades wrote: »

<can of worms>

This is likely to result in a surge in demand for national school places as a large percentage of prospective parents find the doubling of private fees financially impossible. Their kids then compete for already stretched state school resources. It's cheaper for the state to subsidize the private schools than to have half those kids now needing the complete cost of their educations funded by the taxpayer.

The notion that private schools are filled with the children of property developers and bankers is one many people still have. The reality is that most of the kids are of increasingly screwed middle class parents who save for years to send their kids to a school of their choice.

Look at it this way; if you buy a private house in a posh area, nobody gives you the price of a council house to go towards the cost.
If you buy private health insurance, you don't get your PRSI refunded.
In other words, when you want special treatment, you normally pay for it in full.
Except in the case of private schools, where you only pay the difference. This is what keeps religious schools viable.
BTW the "surge in demand" for state schools would be met by a surge in changes from private school patronages to public. In this scenario, there is no net change in the overall number of kids.

Obliq wrote: »

More pineapple blasphemy Will you people never listen? Do I have to show you the consequences AGAIN?

Interesting factoid; that's a pine cone, not a pineapple. Although in ye olden days, they were actually called pineapples, because the real pineapples grew in America and hadn't been discovered yet. The pine cone was originally a finial on the staff of Bacchus, the God of Drinking and Carousing. They used pine cones in the winemaking process.
Later it appeared as a fertility symbol, and as a bedknob in Tudor homes. To add to the confusion, in 18th C USA, carpenters started making what they thought were better, more realistic pineapple finials, with a bunch of leaves on top, to look more like the fruit. In summary, pine nuts would actually be quite nice on pizza.

robindch

recedite wrote: »

[...] a bedknob in Tudor homes. [...]

Was hitchhiking near Ballydehob in West Cork perhaps fifteen years ago when this elderly farmer stopped his Ford Cortina, or something like that, and I hopped in. We shot the breeze for a few miles, but my eye was ineluctably drawn to a brass sphere, perhaps six inches across, where most cars have the small numbered plastic thing at the top of the gearstick. The following conversation ensued and I'll have to ask you to imagine that the West Cork farmer spoke v.e.r.y s.l.o.w.l.y i.n.d.e.e.d.

Me: Uh, what's that?
West Cork farmer: Dat's a brash ball.
Me: Bet it didn't come with the car though, did it?
WCF: Noah. It came off me bedposht.
Me: And what's it doing there on the gearstick?
WCF: Well, iddn't it doing much more good dere, den it ever did on me bedposht?

PopePalpatine

recedite wrote: »

Later it appeared as a fertility symbol, and as a bedknob in Tudor homes.

Judging from all the riding that went on in "The Tudors", I very much doubt Henry VIII would want to impregnate each mistress he shagged. :pac:

robindch

There's a new thread for discussing single-sex schools:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056799951


EDIT: And private schools!
Dades

expectationlost

all our schools being private is central to the discussion of patronage, a method to keep our schools private so the state can avoid having to take responsibilty for education, eg all our vec schools are not run by councils but by (statutory recognised) private charities. http://www.revenue.ie/en/business/authorised-charities.html simply stating that all the schools involved in this patronage survey are private is not controversial, its not my fault it took a page of posts to get that through someone's heads

expectationlost

http://www.mayonews.ie/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=16427:vec-encourages-parents-to-compete-patronage-survey&catid=23:news&Itemid=46 what have hospital cribs got to with vec schools?

low take up in castlebar http://www.advertiser.ie/mayo/article/56325/low-uptake-on-patronage-survey-so-far-in-castlebar

Hotblack Desiato

robindch wrote: »

There's a new thread for discussing single-sex schools:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056799951


EDIT: And private schools!
Dades

But not pizza?

lazygal

We defo need more pizza posts around here.

Obliq

lazygal wrote: »

We defo need more pizza posts around here.

Mmmm, ham and pineapple pizza

Bannasidhe

Obliq wrote: »

Mmmm, ham and pineapple pizza

Abomination - and I say that with love.

Obliq

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Abomination - and I say that with love.

And rather than display that pineapple/pinecone pic again, I say (with much love) stick it where the sun don't shine

PINEAPPLE FOREVER!! I don't like it raw, just cooked - and it's the only cooked fruit I like - don't take it away from me!! Bananas are the abomination, raw or cooked.

Bannasidhe

Obliq wrote: »

And rather than display that pineapple/pinecone pic again, I say (with much love) stick it where the sun don't shine

PINEAPPLE FOREVER!! I don't like it raw, just cooked - and it's the only cooked fruit I like - don't take it away from me!! Bananas are the abomination, raw or cooked.

Sliced banana on toast. Heavenly.

Have a friend who puts pineapple in Spag. Bol. - it's...interesting.