At the threshold of a new endeavor in middle schools, the foundation commissioned studies and surveys among students, teachers, principals and parents. We were surprised to learn that, although achievements are low and gaps are widening, adults are not very concerned with student learning. Parents prioritize middle schools to deal with fostering significant relationships and […]
Amal is one of Israel’s veteran school networks that serves students across 27 high schools, 20 of which also include middle schools, and are located mostly in the geographic and social periphery. In recent years, the network has been leading a variety of efforts in collaboration with the foundation to increase the number of five-unit […]
Middle school students come from a variety of elementary school backgrounds. Sometimes, there are significant gaps in their abilities, which are unknown to the middle school teacher. Therefore, the first months of 7th grade are dedicated to bringing all students to a common starting point. This stage can be frustrating for advanced students and for […]
Applied mathematical thinking skills are important for the 21st century and are at the heart of many current educational innovations and reforms around the world, including the OECD attempt to create a global curriculum (the 2030 Project) and the PISA research. However, in Israel’s middle schools, the rate of excellence in these skills is relatively […]
Singapore has one of the highest performing education systems in the world. In the 2015 international PISA test, Singapore was ranked first in mathematics and in science, for both boys and girls. The share of struggling students was the lowest among all participating countries while the rate of excelling students was the highest. Since 2004, […]
Last year, the foundation approved a grant for a joint program by the Schools of Mathematics and Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to train 45 new five-unit mathematics teachers. The grant was smaller than similar programs, with a condition attached to it that if the School of Education hires a mathematics-teaching researcher as […]
Established in 2014, “It’s Time for Education” (Higia Zman Chinuch), the digital arm of the foundation, grew to become the largest online educational community in Israel. We created it to ignite discourse around our efforts in high school, to encourage potential career-changers to become teachers, and to focus public attention on quality teaching, especially in […]
Convening is an important component of our philanthropic toolbox. Our shared strategy is carried out mostly by others – capable professionals and organizations, from civil society, academia and government. They all need to work in tandem, to share knowledge and knowhow, and to align their activities coherently and effectively. Therefore, over the years, our portfolio […]
Personalized learning is very difficult to operate in a large classroom with students of diverse capabilities. Whether by circumstance, choice, or habit, teachers tend to use a ‘one size fits all’ curriculum in their classrooms and expect their students to navigate their way through it. In high school, especially as the five-unit classes expanded, many […]
The foundation’s roadmap for middle schools assumes that the national curriculum encourages teachers to lead their students to high levels of knowledge, skill and expertise. Therefore, we expect to find among the many textbooks and tasks that teachers use, such learning materials that challenge students and push them to excel. Specifically, we seek to identify […]
The ecosystem around middle schools in Israel is very different from that of high schools. Middle schools are directly controlled by the Ministry of Education, whereas high schools are directed by local authorities and school networks. Tests in middle schools are administered by the National Authority for Measurement and Evaluation (RAMA), in contrast to […]
In preparation for each of the 25 local partnerships the foundation has co-created with municipalities, the municipality collected and analyzed basic data on its five-unit tracks. This data included information on students and teachers, as well as parents, programs and other resources, in order to identify trends, needs, opportunities and bottlenecks. In almost all cases, […]
In 2012, a sharp decline over less than a decade in the number of high school graduates majoring in mathematics and the sciences, indicated an emerging problem for Israel’s education and future. With less than 10% of students ranked “high achievers”, the danger of a drying pipeline of talent has turned the public eye towards […]
The foundation’s clinical teaching strategy always thrived to find ways to help teachers use a personalized learning plan for each and every student in their class. By diagnosing the student’s knowledge and capabilities and adapting the teaching accordingly, we believed that teachers would be able to better address the difficulties, learning styles and pace of […]
Shfaram is a city in the north of Israel and home to a Druze, Arab and Christian population of more than 40,000 residents. The city has a low ranking on the national socio-economic index. Over the past years, many new residents moved to the city, resulting in a more diverse population. This is reflected in […]
In 7th grade, most students in Israel’s middle schools do not yet study mathematics in ability groupings. This leads to highly diverse classrooms which are comprised of students coming from several elementary schools with different backgrounds. The National MEITZAV exams in mathematics, which are taken in 5th and 8th grade, indicate that knowledge and skill […]
Almost three years ago, the foundation approved a grant to the Davidson Institute, to train 40 new instructional coaches of mathematics. The course was envisioned in collaboration with the Ministry of Education that reported an upcoming shortage of mathematics coaches in national and district leadership positions. The course was planned to be executed over a […]
Holon is a large city in the Tel Aviv District with approximately 190,000 residents. The city branded itself as the “Children’s City”, with a children’s museum and numerous cultural activities for kids. The educational system of Holon accommodates more than 37,000 students attending 265 kindergartens, 34 elementary schools, and 19 high schools (of which 11 […]
Tirat Carmel is a small city in the northern periphery of Israel with a population of 24,000 residents. Intensive construction is taking place in the city and its number of residents is planned to double in the coming years. However, the city is on the lower end of the national socio-economic scale in Israel. […]
Hura is a Bedouin Local Council in the Negev Desert that was established in 1989 to settle the local nomad tribes. Today Hura is home to 21,000 residents, of which 60% are children under the age of 17. Hura is located at the very low end of the national socio-economic scale, however in recent years, […]
Established in 1977, the city of Ma’ale Adumim is by now home to 37,600 residents. Its education system comprises of 8,587 students. There are six high schools, where 1,995 students are enrolled in 10th-12th grades. The matriculation graduation rate in 2017 was 89.2% (higher than the 68.2% national average), however only 13% completed with five-units […]
In the current school year, 18,050 high school students completed 5-unit mathematics, reflecting more than a 100% growth from 8,869 graduates in 2012. These graduates were promised that ‘5 units will open the doors’ for them, to university, and consequently into the job market. Now, the eyes turn to the higher education system, in order […]
In a recent press conference, the Minister of Education publically announced that Israel has succeeded to meet its goal of doubling the number of high school graduates who majored the five-unit track in mathematics. “We saved the Startup Nation”, he declared with pride, followed by an elaborated report on performance and next steps by the […]
The Foundation’s partnerships with municipalities have increased in the previous school year to 15 cities. Each municipality defines an ambitious goal for increasing its number of five-unit high school graduates in mathematics and prepares a plan to support the teachers, harness the principals and engage the parents. In order to sustain this growing portfolio, last […]
“Five Club” was established in 2015 by the University of Haifa (assisted by a grant from the Trump Foundation) in order to create and operate professional learning communities (PLCs) for 5-unit mathematics teachers across the country. In these communities, the teachers work systematically in order to improve their teaching practices by analyzing their students’ learning, […]
Ofakim is a small city in the Southern District of Israel with a population of approximately 28,000. It was founded in 1955 as a development town, absorbing Jewish immigrants mostly from Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Iran, India and Romania. Residents used to work at local textile factories, until they closed and then in construction and agriculture. […]
The city of Yavne has approximately 50,000 residents and over the past three years has been undergoing a process of growth. In the next few years the city’s population will increase further to 100,000. Yavne is home to diverse communities with large socio-economic gaps between them. Its education system comprises two small and two large […]
Human talent is Israel’s most important resource. We take pride in our scientists and entrepreneurs who successfully built, and continue to build, a small “start-up nation” and a striving economy in a very difficult region and against all odds. For a country under a continuous security threat and with demanding military needs, staying the course […]
The Einstein school of mathematics at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem is a world-renowned mathematics department. Its faculty comprises highly talented mathematicians, including, Elon Lindenstrauss, the 2010 Fields Medal Laurate and David Kazhdan and Alex Lubotzki, winners of the Israel Prize in mathematics. Several of them have been active along the years on an individual […]
The foundation’s strategy is focused on expanding the circle of excellence of mathematics and the sciences in high schools. Therefore, most of our efforts are dedicated to nurturing clinical teaching in the 5-unit track in the upper secondary school level (grades 10-12). However, in recent years, we have turned our attention to also smooth the […]