The Israeli educational system has been no model for instilling values and knowledge for a long time. We have all encountered, as kids and as parents, exhausted teachers who are counting the years until retirement, long, boring school hours, and principals with no managerial skills.
This situation is reflected in Israeli students’ test scores: According to the2012 PISA tests, which ranked average student achievement in OECD countries, the results of which are presented in the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel’s “State of the Nation” report for 2013, Israeli students placed 24 out the 25 countries ranked in the survey, ahead only of Slovakia.
Moreover, Israel’s Arabs are ranked well below Slovakia. According to the data, the education that Arabs in Israel receive in math, science, and in reading, produce the achievement levels lower than in developing countries such as Jordan, Tunisia, and Malaysia. According to the Taub Center, the gaps between the achievements of students within Israel in core subjects, even excluding haredim (ultra-Orthodox Jews), who do not learn a significant portion of the material and do not participate in the tests, are the largest in the developed world.
Representatives from the “Partners for Change in Education” initiative, which unites ten leading educational organizations seeking to promote a discourse of change in order to improve the education system for the 21st century, gathered two weeks ago for a conference intended to revolutionize perceptions in the education system. The participants - academics, principals, and teachers from across the Israeli education spectrum, from secular, to religious, to Arab, agreed upon actionable steps to help schools alter perceptions among parents, teachers, and students, while influencing public discourse, and broadening the initiative towards establishing an educational reform lobby.
The initiative was established by The Center for Israeli Education, which has been active since 1999 in advancing education in Israel, and runs programs and activities in 100 schools across the country, to improve the status of Israeli schools.
Flexible class sizes
One of the changes that participants in the initiative are seeking to effect is in the attitude toward the allocation of the many contributions made by businesses to education. According to Center for Israeli Education CEO Oren Yehi-Shalom, most philanthropists invest money in programs to benefit children in the periphery, rather than investing in a process that could bring about policy change.
“When I look through the prism of the numbers,” says chairman Tal Menipaz, “the big numbers say that the education system, in its entirety, is in the vicinity of NIS 60 billion, and the foundations that deal specifically in enrichment and reinforcement are NIS 300 million. There is no doubt that half a percent cannot replace 99.5%, and, on the other hand, there is no doubt that foundations in Israel, certainly from what I know, do great work, fantastic work, work that creates change, but when you at the numbers, our sense at least is that for every little change that takes place for every child who receives attention in a given year, we find ourselves a year later with five new children who need attention again. The question is, how can we take NIS 300 million and use it to move the whole NIS 60 billion? In any event, we are talking about tremendous, deep, systemic changes, and I want to suggest that every foundation, and every businessperson who is thinking about how to fix education in Israel, needs to think in terms of funds invested, in terms of those NIS 300 million, and to recognize that every one of those shekels needs to leverage 180 shekels.
According to Center for Israeli Education joint chairman Adv. Dr. Ilan Cohen, “This entity, this dinosaur called the Ministry of Education, needs to change dramatically. I think a very big change needs to take place vis-a-vis the teachers’ organizations, which are perhaps the most powerful entity in Israel. Only interested civil groups that operate smartly, wisely, can effect change. I really believe that the future is in technology, but there is no doubt about one thing: without a dramatic change in education, there is one threat that we can point to in Israel, and it is not Iran - it is the social threat, with the poor education situation at its forefront."
Oranim College President Dr. Yaara Bar On explains the reform required in the education system, under which schools would be granted a significant degree of autonomy in selecting course content, budget management, selection of unique programs of study, and other tools that, as in Western countries, would allow principals and teachers around the country to advance values and excellence in their areas of activity, including on Israel’s social and geographic fringes.
“On a practical level, we need to decentralize the educational system. Decentralize does not mean privatize, we are talking about a public system, which outlines general policy, and allows communities to interpret various elements from among the goals set forth in a National Education Law. It is our job to transform the schools into something that can contain a diverse, heterogeneous population. We do not open schools that teach 40 students seven different subjects every day, six days a week. We need very flexible frameworks, a little more like a university, that allow a school to adapt to the nature of the community and to the needs of its unique students.
“This also means classes with variable sizes and with varying demands. The students need to be able to sit quietly for an hour and listen to someone giving a lecture in an auditorium in a large group, they need to be able to work alone, and they need to be able to work in the library, and to work in pairs. Imagine a kid in school who has to sit for seven hours and hear seven different things from seven different teachers. Even we, as adults, can’t do it.
“What’s important to us is strong communities, with schools at their centers, a strong principal with a strong staff, who know how to engage the community around them. We need teachers who know how to work with parents, principals who know how to create an inclusive leadership, not meddling parents who come for an hour or a day. We need experienced people for whom the school is their primary occupation. At the end of the day - and research from other countries proves this - this is what will lead to narrowing the gaps.”
High-tech entrepreneur Yanki Margalit, who is troubled by the fact that the education system does not prepare children for the job market of the future, also participated in the conference. “When a six-year old girl goes to school in 2014, she will leave the education system in 20 years, and will reach the job market, which will be entirely different from what it is today. This is where the problem with education begins. Education is, for the most part, built on educating for the past. We educate for a system that is familiar from our past. The lifestyle that we have become accustomed to is dead. I would like to bring three-year olds a pedagogical program that deals in logic, science, technology, English, math, planning, art. I have a three-year old. She is in daycare. She learns about Jewish holidays, the Sabbath, God, and that a cow goes ‘moo,’ and a sheep goes ‘baa,' This is her education from two years in daycare. This is dreadful. If she were dependent upon her daycare, she would have no future.”
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on May 19, 2014
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