In May 2022, immediately after Israel’s Independence Day, and following intensive preparations, the foundation launched the first Israel Excellence Week. The idea was to collaborate with a variety of organizations and to jointly recognize and celebrate Israeli excellence in a series of professional and public events. When we started the initiative, we did not know […]
In May 2022, immediately after Israel’s Independence Day, and following intensive preparations, the foundation launched the first Israel Excellence Week. The idea was to collaborate with a variety of organizations and to jointly recognize and celebrate Israeli excellence in a series of professional and public events. When we started the initiative, we did not know […]
From its establishment in 2014 and until today, “It’s Time for Education” continues to be the largest digital magazine addressing education in Israel. The online community includes veteran and aspiring teachers as well as others interested in mathematics and science education. In 2021, 433 teachers wrote online content for the magazine, which was read by […]
Established in 2010, Darca is a school network with 37 schools, attended by 24,450 students located mainly in the geographic periphery of Israel. The network collaborated with the foundation several years ago in order to increase the rate of graduates from the five-unit track in mathematics from 11% in 2013 to 18% in 2018. In […]
The Northern district of the Ministry of Education operates schools with a heterogeneous population which includes Jews, Arabs, Druze and Bedouin students. The district’s 151 middle schools are attended by 62,000 students. In 2014, the district and the Technion partnered with the foundation to help increase the rate of high school students graduating from the […]
At the foundation’s initiative, during the last few years 450 high-order applied mathematics tasks were developed for excellence classes and high ability groups in middle school. The implementation of these tasks in classrooms poses multiple challenges for mathematics teachers, as it requires conceptual, pedagogical and organizational changes on the teacher’s part. Many of them find […]
The philanthropic approach which the Trump Foundation embraced at its outset is a spinoff of what is known as “catalytic philanthropy”. First introduced in 2009 by Mark Kramer, the catalytic approach calls upon foundations to mobilize an ecosystem of stakeholders to operate in tandem in order to solve social problems together. It requires foundations to […]
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 […]
The city of Ramat Gan, in the center of Israel, is home to some 160,000 residents. Its education system consists a total of 28,780 students, with seven high schools divided into four large schools for grades 9 through 12 and three smaller schools for grades 7 through 12. Of the ninth grade students, 14% (194) […]
With the initiative and support of the Trump Foundation, leading developers in universities and education organizations are preparing an arsenal of new learning material for middle school students. The new material targets high ability students in mathematics who study in excellence classes, and its content is aligned with the advanced 5-6 proficiency levels of the […]
The foundation’s roadmap in middle school operates to expand and strengthen the circle of excellence in mathematics and the sciences. Since 2018, we have seeded a portfolio for the development of advanced level learning assignments, the preparation of teachers and the opening of additional excellence classes across the country. This effort relies on partnerships with […]
Bu’eine Nujeidat is a local council in the Northern District of Israel compiled of two villages (Bu’eine and Nujeidat), with approximately 10,300 residents and a diverse Arab population. The council residents are on the lower end of the national socioeconomic scale in Israel. There are two middle schools and one high school, attended by 1,136 […]
Yeruham is a local council in the Southern District of Israel in the Negev desert, with a population of approximately 12,000. The council has three middle and high schools that serve 1,006 students. They include one school for boys, one for girls and one school for both religious and secular students, of higher and lower […]
Reineh is an Arab local council in northern Israel (located between Nazareth and Kfar Kanna) with some 19,200 residents of generally low socioeconomic status. 1,186 students attend the council’s two middle and two high schools, including 644 at middle school. There is one excellence class, which 19 (10%) ninth grade students attend. In 2020, 12.6% […]
Maghar is a city in the Northern District with a mixed population of 24,000 Druze, Christians and Muslims. It was officially declared a city only recently, in October 2021. It has two middle schools and two high schools. Expanding matriculation in the five-unit mathematics track has been unstable and fluctuating, with 14.3% of the students […]
Bnei Akiva Yeshivot and Ulpanot Center is an educational organization for Jewish religious students established in1954. It operates more than 60 institutions, from middle schools to colleges, spread from the North of Israel to Eilat in the South. It has 58 middle and high schools serving 14,772 students, divided in 23 schools for girls and […]
In June 2020, the foundation approved a grant to the Branco Weiss Institute for a program to implement applied mathematics assignments in 240 middle school excellence classes and high ability groups in the Central District. When implementation of the program began, there was a huge demand for it from Hebrew-speaking schools. This year, 500 teachers […]
The 2018 PISA research results exposed a significant gap between Hebrew-speaking and Arabic-speaking students in Israel. The average result in mathematics for Arabic-speaking students declined by 12 points to 379 (one of the lowest in the world), in contrast with an average score of 490 for Hebrew speakers (which is also the OECD average). Looking […]
In the 21st century, with computers and robots implementing routine tasks, the modern work place requires much more sophisticated skills from its human employees. As a result, education systems around the world are transforming their curricula and pedagogy, so that students learn how to think deeply, plan thoroughly and interpret intelligently. In mathematics, procedural fluency […]
This year will mark a decade since the Trump Foundation began its activity in Israel. During this special year, we will be proposing a series of events and publications celebrating success, excellence and collaboration. As part of this package we are suggesting to give a modest gift to Teacher’s Day, an initiative originated by the […]
Israel prides itself on being the “Startup Nation” with thousands of entrepreneurs constantly creating technological startups and development centers. Dozens of exits, mergers and IPOs are signed every year, feeding the Israeli economy with creativity and resources that make it strong and prosperous even in difficult times. As a result, many parents hope their children […]
In the landscape of philanthropy, the Trump Foundation is perceived as unique. We practice an approach called “Catalytic Philanthropy” which focuses on solving a national problem. This approach creates a highly transparent outcome-driven strategy, convenes an ecosystem of stakeholders and weaves networks of knowledge sharing and collaboration, and makes our case very interesting for colleagues, […]
In 2019, the foundation approved a grant to the Center for Educational Technology to establish an online program in high order mathematical thinking for Arab-sector middle school students. The goal of the program was to reach 1,500 students within five years. A grant from the foundation was sought to fund the development of materials and […]
A year ago, the Technion started developing a physics course focusing on kinematics, which uses advanced mathematics modeling. When the proposal was considered by the foundation, the reviewers feared that since kinematics is not part of the curriculum, teachers would have minimal motivation to teach it and therefore take it only as an enrichment activity […]
The PISA framework in mathematics inspires the foundation’s roadmap in middle school. It was intentionally designed to mirror the skills needed for work and life in the 21st century. Therefore, in the past three years, the foundation supported the development of learning materials which promote high-level mathematical thinking aligned with the excellence levels of PISA. […]
Teaching students how to solve complex applied mathematical problems by using modelling and reasoning skills requires distinct classroom pedagogy. Over the past three years, the foundation has been collaborating with the top educational developers in Israel to prepare new learning assignments that apply these skills and align with the PISA 5-6 proficiency levels. As a […]
The Druze community in Israel comprises 143,000 citizens living mainly in the north of Israel. Daliyat al-Carmel (18,000 residents) and Isfiya (13,000 residents) are two local councils with a majority of Druze residents. In 2003, these two councils were merged to form Carmel City, however the new city was dissolved in 2008 and the two councils […]
The city of Ashkelon, in the South of Israel, is home to approximately 160,000 residents, including new immigrants from South Africa, the United Kingdom, Ethiopia and Russia. Thirty-three thousand students are enrolled in the city’s education system of which 10,500 attend 13 secondary schools. The middle schools offer 13 excellence classes in 11 schools, serving 456 […]
Beit Shean is a local council in the Northern District with approximately 20,000 residents. Its education system comprises 4,970 students, of which 1,553 in four secondary schools, all run by the ORT network. Only two of the schools operate an excellence class in middle school, attended by 40 students. The Beit Shean council is part […]
Teaching applied mathematics which involves solving real life problems requires a shift in pedagogy. In other countries that have already made this transition, teachers moved from the traditional constructivist method, towards an approach that encourages self-regulated learning and peer discussions. In order to facilitate a similar transition in Israel, developers of applied mathematics tasks in […]