Petach Tikva aims to shrink drop-down rates from 5-unit mathematics from 15% to 5% and train additional teachers, in order to build capacity in the city
Petach Tikva is a large city in the Central District of Israel, with one of Israel’s fastest growing populations, numbering approximately 225,000 residents, with 40% national Orthodox or ultra-Orthodox. About 14,500 students attend secondary education in the city (2,400 per year group). There are eight high schools in the secular system (of which 6 have five-unit matriculation mathematics tracks) and 8 religious schools (of which 3 have five-unit mathematics matriculation tracks).
To date, the city has taken initial steps to improve mathematics and science achievement. All schools participate in the government’s ‘technological scientific reserve’ program, in addition to a number of supplementary programs that provide volunteer teaching assistance for the teacher in class (Shiur BeYachad). As a result, there has been a slight increase in the number of students choosing five units, reaching 11% of the city’s graduates in 2014. In 2015, however, as a consequence of the national “mathematics first” program, the city identified an emerging interest as many students moved from the four-unit track to five units.
The municipality now wishes to capitalize on this growing trend and support it with a solid professional infrastructure. A needs assessment report and a survey among teachers and principals revealed the following challenges:
Addressing these issues, and in line with the national goals, Petach Tikva municipal leadership has decided to set itself the goal of increasing 5-unit mathematics graduates to 20% of the city’s high school students (450 students) by 2019. To do so, they plan to decrease drop-down rates from 5-unit mathematics from 15% to 5%. In addition, they aim to train at least additional 18 teachers to teach 5-unit mathematics to join the current cadre of 30 teachers.
In order to achieve these ambitious goals, they are proposing a three-year comprehensive city-wide program, for which they have already recruited a municipal program director, Bracha Moskovitch, a former high school vice-principal, who will work alongside one of the city’s leading mathematics teachers, to coordinate and integrate the program across the board. The program will include the following elements:
The municipality has also expressed interest in cultivating and improving 5-unit physics studies in the city and will consider how the mathematics program could potentially be expanded to include physics teachers. To this effect, they will establish a physics community and professional development course for physics teachers from the second year of the program.