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turgid writes:

The Guardian web site carries a story about Accelerated Christian Education schools, of which there are approximately 60 in the UK in which secondary school-age children are indoctrinated with fundamentalist Christian propaganda in place of the conventional secular syllabus.

Very worryingly, the "science" education is a mix of vaguely plausible (but wrong) pseudo-scientific factoids mixed with quotations from the bible. In one instance, the claim is made that, due to the angle of the spokes on snowflakes being 60 degrees, it should be possible to extract electric current directly from snow "eliminating the need for costly, heavy, and complex equipment now needed to generate electricity." Needless to say, scientists have likened this claim to bovine excrement "on stilts".

The English education system permits state-funded faith schools where pupils can be indoctrinated into a particular religion in the course of their studies, and there is no restriction on which religion can be taught. Faith schools have been very popular since they appear to have better academic results than conventional comprehensives, mainly because they select their pupils by ability and complicity. It is not uncommon for parents to adopt a religion superficially in order to get their children into such a school (traditionally Church of England or Roman Catholic but increasingly Jewish and Muslim).

Does religion still have a place in the state-funded classroom? Is it not dangerous for society to proactively support ignorance, superstition and sectarianism?