Alqasoum Regional Council will Promote Excellence in Middle Class

Alqasoum is a regional council in the northwestern Negev providing education services to more than 60,000 Bedouin citizens who are widely dispersed in small villages. The council is on the lowest end of the national socioeconomic scale. The education system is organized in such a way that children arrive daily by public transportation to one of five elementary schools (until ninth grade) and five high schools. Excellence in mathematics and the sciences is not a high priority as ability groups in mathematics are attended only by 150 students (16%) and there is only one excellence class in one of the schools.

The council reports that the transition to tenth grade is a huge obstacle, as 22% of the students leave the local school system, either dropping out or registering in two magnet schools in the Bedouin towns of Hura and Kuseife. From among those who decided to remain in one of the local high schools, 182 students were enrolled in the five unit-track in mathematics in 2018, however only 15 (3.3%) successfully graduated the track in 2020. The council believes the reason for this drop down is the insufficient preparation in middle school.

With a new local leadership, the council now wishes to create opportunities for middle school students in the local schools, and strengthen their mathematical skills in preparation for the five-unit track. They are proposing a three-year program in which, with their own resources, they will establish nine excellence classes in eighth and ninth grades. In the excellence classes, students will receive four supplementary weekly teaching hours in order to study high-level applied mathematics and mathematics-based science studies, aligned with the PISA excellence levels.

An academic institution will join the program to establish local professional learning communities for 20 mathematics and 20 science teachers. In these communities, the teachers will become familiar with the new study materials. During the first year, the institution will also provide additional instructional coaching to five of the middle school teachers in order to guide them with implementation. Five mathematics department heads will attend a course so they will be able to continuously provide instructional coaching to the teachers to help them implement the new content in their classes.

The ten school principals will attend a designated principals’ forum. The council will organize seminars and workshops for the teachers and school principals, and convene meetings with parents of students of the excellence classes. As a result of all these activities, the council assumes that by 2025 they will have 20% (182) of the ninth grade students graduating from an excellence class, and 70% of them succeeding on a diagnostic tool aligned with PISA’s top 5-6 proficiency levels.