Reforming The School System: Rehovot Netivot Moshe School Third Grader Testifies

"Representatives of the Teachers? Union, the Education Ministry and the Treasury were meeting Monday (4 April 2005) ahead of negotiations on implementing the recommendations of the Dovrat Commission on reforming the school system. The teachers are opposed to key elements of the report, according to Israel Radio, including moving to a five-day school week and firing teachers.

Nitza Bar-El from the Teachers? Association of Secondary School Teachers told Israel Radio that they want a genuine reform of the school system that will benefit the students and teachers alike, and not the changes the Dovrat Commission has called for:

?What we really want is a real reform. The Dovrat reform is not a real reform, it is just a name for an organizational change in the system,? said Bar-El. ?A real reform really means having fewer pupils in the classrooms, more time for real dialogue with students, better teaching and learning conditions. What Dovrat has done is just having a longer day where pupils and teachers stay in the school doing nothing??

That Israeli schools are among the most problematic in the world is not new news. In fact, the reason for the Dovrat Commission was to evaluate how Israel can improve its educational offerings. Anshel Pfeffer reported in the Hebrew daily Ha?aretz on 28 January 2004 on a multinational study showing Israeli teachers with among the lowest morale and highest rates of absenteeism in the industrialized world. Israeli classrooms were found to be among the most unruly. Half of the boys and one third of the girls between 11 and 16 reported being injured in a violent incident in the course of the school year.

In the last eight years there has been a move by the organization Lev L?Achim to offer an alternative to the rowdy public school system via its ?PROJECT RISHUM: The Campaign to Enroll Children in Torah Schools in Eretz Yisrael.? Throughout the country public schools are getting smaller while parents opt to send their kids to a Torah school to be taught not only secular studies on a level much higher than what is received in your average public institution, but also derech eretz (manners), respect for one?s parents, the elderly and more.

This reporter visited the Keren Netivot Moshe Torah School in Chadera where the children jump to greet their principal, Gila Nahari, as well as their teachers and any other adult who enters the classroom.

Nahari said the school has a very good reputation and is rapidly growing each year. There were 40 students when it started in 2000; today there are over 200. When the children arrive they are dressed like typical secular children and have standard secular educations. Nahari said many of the children have never even seen a siddur (prayer book), let alone prayed from one. However, you would never know it from the way they appear in school. On this reporter?s visit, nearly all the little boys were wearing kippot (skull caps) and tzitzit (ritual fringes) ? decisions they made on their own. The little girls dress in skirts to their ankles and high-buttoned blouses. But most importantly, the children are respectful to their teachers and also to one another.

?There is a big difference between this school and my previous one,? Gadi, a slight third grader learning at the Netivot Moshe school in Rechovot, disclosed. ?In my other school there was always screaming and hitting. There we learned a little and here we learn a lot. Here I enjoy being at school because I have good friends and a good teacher.?

There are many schools that follow the Netivot Moshe model, reaching non-religious families who are unsatisfied with their children?s education at the secular schools. Most of the students are contacted via Lev L?Achim?s enrollment workers. These schools include, but are not limited to, the Shas Ma?ayan HaChinuch and SHUVU networks.

A team of researchers led by Ben-Gurion University professor Tamar Horowitz last year published the results of surveys of students in five SHUVU schools. They found extremely high self?image among the students, that parents believe their children?s studies are preparing them well for life, and that the children are proud to be Jews.

On an educational level, the Education Ministry recently released a study of fifth-grade boys learning in the Ma?ayan HaChinuch network. It found that boys scored slightly higher in Hebrew than their peers in public school.

As the Passover holiday rolls around, Lev L?Achim will launch another enrollment campaign, trying to contact parents and convince them to enroll their children in Torah schools before they are lost to the violence of secular establishments."

Source: Mayaan Jaffe. Does Dovrat Commission Mean Change? Teachers' Association Says No. InfoIsrael.Net (last viewed 28 April 2005) [FullText]