The Victorian Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby has expressed it is disappointment over the State Government's proposed changes to religious freedom exemptions.

The Government says the changes would mean religious groups will not be able to discriminate on a range of grounds including race, age, disability and political beliefs.

But religious organisations can still discriminate on the basis of sexuality and marital status.

Verity Firth is incompetent and corrupt. She misled parliament and the shadow minister on issues at Carenne Special School. See http://sydney.indymedia.org.au/topic/carenne-school

By News Online's Sarah Collerton

A children's literature expert says changes made to the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty are part of a worrying trend in society.

In the United Kingdom, the BBC is under fire for rewriting Humpty Dumpty to give it a happy ending on the CBeebies children's program Something Special.

Instead of the last line saying "couldn't put Humpty together again", the new version claimed all the King's horses and all the King's men "made Humpty happy again".

June Factor, who has spent nearly four decades researching and writing children's books, says such moves to "sanitise" story-telling is very concerning.

...

Dr Factor says scary tales are meant to teach children about dangers in the world.

"Fairytales are full of very grim life experiences - dead parents, being left in the woods, there's tricksters and dangers - and what they do for children is a whole number of things," she said.

"It's a way of approaching the world for children in symbolic ways so they do gain some understanding of the world but they don't actuallty have to go out and experience the big bad wolf or whatever.

"They are about courage, resilience, quick-wittedness, patience and they are all about hope."

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AND let's not forget those fairy tales teaching about sex... see toon at top...

from the smh

HOUSTON: In a coup likely to shift what millions of American children learn at school, a clutch of Christian evangelicals and social conservatives who have grasped control of the Texas Board of Education are expected to force through a new state curriculum this week.

The board is to vote on a purge of alleged liberal bias in Texas school books in favour of what board member Cynthia Dunbar says really matters: a belief in America as a nation chosen by God as a beacon to the world.

''We are fighting for our children's education and our nation's future,'' Ms Dunbar said. ''In Texas we have certain statutory obligations to promote patriotism and to promote the free enterprise system.

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''There seems to have been a move away from a patriotic ideology. There seems to be a denial that this was a nation founded under God. We had to go back and make some corrections.''

Those corrections prompted a blizzard of accusations of rewriting history and indoctrinating children by promoting right-wing views on religion, economics and guns while diminishing the science of evolution, the civil rights movement and the horrors of slavery.

Several changes include sidelining Thomas Jefferson, who favoured separation of church and state, while introducing a new focus on the ''significant contributions'' of pro-slavery Confederate leaders during the civil war. Study of Sir Isaac Newton is dropped in favour of examining scientific advances through military technology.

----------------------------

Sigh...

The argument about ethics classes in New South Wales schools is getting dirty, with allegations that powerful church forces are effectively branch stacking in an effort to thwart the plans.

It is not every day one of Australia's biggest Christian denominations is compared to a political party machine, but it is an accusation being levelled at the Anglican Church by NSW Greens MP John Kaye.

Mr Kaye says an Anglican Church organisation is trying to encourage its supporters to join Parents and Citizens associations in order to protect existing religious education classes.

He says the Church is using the same tactics Labor's right wing "is famous for".

"They're trying to stack the P and Cs with parents who will oppose the ethics trial. This is highly unethical behaviour in order to destroy the ethics trial," he said.

The ethics trial is a test run in government schools of what are known as ethics classes.

They are meant to provide an alternative for students whose parents would prefer their children not to take part in weekly religious education classes.

With the Government's trial proving popular and signs it may be expanded statewide, the church is mounting a counter campaign.

The Church's community organisation, Youthworks, has set up a website and is urging parents to get involved by joining their local P and C Association to campaign to keep religious education classes.

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see toon at top...

• Queensland aware Creationism being taught
• Extremists feeding children misinformation
• "Noah collected dino eggs, spell protected Adam"
• Call to end Religious Instruction classes

PRIMARY school students are being taught that man and dinosaurs walked the Earth together and that there is fossil evidence to prove it.

Fundamentalist Christians are hijacking Religious Instruction (RI) classes in Queensland despite education experts saying Creationism and attempts to convert children to Christianity have no place in state schools.

Students have been told Noah collected dinosaur eggs to bring on the Ark, and Adam and Eve were not eaten by dinosaurs because they were under a protective spell.

Critics are calling for the RI program to be scrapped after claims emerged Christian lay people are feeding children misinformation.

About 80 per cent of children at state primary schools attend one half-hour instruction a week, open to any interested lay person to conduct.

Many of the instructors are from Pentecostal churches.

ETHICS classes in NSW public schools may move a step closer soon with the government expected to adopt the recommendations of an independent report on a 10-week ethics trial held in 10 schools earlier this year.

Paul Williams, of South Golden Beach, is a parent whose nine-year-old son attends The Pocket Public School and is pleased to hear ethics classes may start as early as April next year.

“The Pocket has about 80 kids and at the moment about half of them don’t go to SRE (Special Religious Education),” he said.

“For me, the ethics classes give a good alternative, as at the moment the kids sit in the library when SRE is on.”

Mr Williams found out about the ethics classes when he went to a P&C conference in Sydney and decided he liked the structure and course content that was offered.

“It is getting kids to think in ethical terms and discuss these for themselves,” he said.

http://www.northernstar.com.au/story/2010/10/21/ethics-classes-may-be-offered-soon/

MORE than $1 billion in cuts has been targeted in a secret NSW Education Department blueprint that proposes closing more than 100 schools, axing 7500 teachers, selling surplus land and slashing the costs of programs for disadvantaged students.

The blueprint, large parts of which are already under way and which are modelled on Victorian premier Jeff Kennett's education reforms in the 1990s, would save $800 million a year.

The secret review reveals the department is facing a $1 billion budget shortfall within two years and provides a template for an incoming state government to reduce spending.

The Education Minister, Verity Firth, said the Boston Consulting Group report was commissioned by Treasury to identify savings as part of the government's Better Services Taskforce.

''It made a number of radical suggestions such as the closure of schools which I found totally unacceptable and rejected outright,'' she said.

''There are always opportunities to save on administrative costs in a department the size of Education and no cuts were made to schools or teachers.''

But principals are involved in a trial recommended by the report to give them greater control over their budgets.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/secret-cuts-to-schools-20110318-1c0m9.html

one can see the release of the "documents" as a political tool to damage Labor.... by the SMH, when considering the title the SMH used...

THE Shooters and Fishers Party will join forces with the Reverend Fred Nile to stop the state government's controversial industrial relations changes, if Mr Nile is not satisfied with negotiations about scrapping ethics classes.

Mr Nile says he will block the government from passing key legislation in the upper house unless they get rid of ethics classes, which are running in 128 public schools and compete with scripture classes.

Robert Borsak, from the Shooters and Fishers Party, said he was in Mr Nile's corner.

PARENTS will not be told of the availability of ethics classes in their school until after they have opted out of special religious education, or scripture, under changes to be adopted by the state government.
A government-initiated parliamentary inquiry into ethics classes advocated the approach in April, angering supporters who claimed it was designed to impede their take-up in schools.
The Education Minister, Adrian Piccoli, confirmed on Tuesday that ethics classes will be retained in NSW schools but said the government would introduce the new system. This means parents will be first offered a place in scripture classes and only told about ethics in a follow-up letter if they opt out.
The Greens MP John Kaye described the change as ''a massive road block'' to parents being informed of ethics classes.
''The government will now force schools to hide the existence of ethics classes,'' he said.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/opting-out-of-religion-only-way-in-to-ethics-20121204-2atad.html#ixzz2E75DbPr9