A program to double the graduates of the five units in mathematics and science

In 2013 the Trump Foundation has partnered with the Ministry of Education, Rashi Foundation and Intel Israel, in order to create a cross sectorial coalition around the goal of increasing excellence in Mathematics and Science Education. We asked Sheatufim, a non-profit organization which specializes in such collaborations to study the Collective Impact model that was recently developed and implemented around the world, and to adapt it to the Israeli context.

Two years down the road, the coalition, named: ‘5p2’ (an abbreviation of – ‘to double the number of graduates of the five unit track), has 60 member organizations, including high tech companies, science museums, education institutions, universities, colleges, the IDF, and many more. The group jointly studied the causes for the decline in math and science excellence and agreed on a shared vision, goals and measures.

In tandem, the Ministry of Education embraced the effort and adopted the coalition goals in its ‘Mathematics First’ program which was initiated a year ago at the initiative and in partnership with the coalition. The new ‘High Five’ program, which was recently launched to elevate and upgrade the government’s investment in this realm was also envisioned and designed in close collaboration with the coalition and its leaders.

At this point, the ‘5p2’ coalition is at a crossroad. On the one hand, since the government has targeted the topic as high priority, there are members who wish to expand its scope to additional areas, such as cyber computing, or additional audiences, such as elementary schools. Others on the other hand, claim that we need to maintain focus and make sure that the goals are indeed achieved. Following intensive consultations, several steps were agreed upon, which have been formulated by Sheatufim into a work plan:

1. Collaborating with the Ministry of Education to assist in achieving the goal of increasing excellence in mathematics studies, while incrementally including physics and chemistry studies as well;
2. Focusing on data and measurement, by encouraging the Ministry to improve collection practices and collaborating with the National Authority for Education Assessment in preparing an annual progress report;
3. Recruiting volunteers from high tech, the universities and IDF to join the effort as teaching assistants, to invite classrooms to visit their workplace and to increase student motivation via lectures and presentations;
4. Engaging coalition members in deep discourse and learning, encouraging collaborative projects across sectors, and harnessing additional members, particularly from the universities and the local authority.

The Trump Foundation was asked to provide 33% of the funding for operations in 2015/2016 and 25% in 2016/2017. In addition, the foundation’s funding is sought for a planning process which intends to identify ways to attract high tech employees to become teachers while maintaining their high tech jobs, and to catalyze collaborative projects that enable such initiative.

* The text presented above shows the grant as approved by the Foundation Board / Grant 172