Slippery Slope

According to the State Comptroller’s annual report released yesterday, core subjects are not taught properly in National Religious schools, with English being neglected almost entirely.  In addition, standardized test scores of students in National Religious schools are significantly lower than those of students in regular state schools.  Furthermore, many complaints have been received about the integration of families from religious outreach groups (“garin torani”) in National Religious kindergartens and schools, which results in radicalization in areas such as the separation of boys and girls and allowing rabbis into kindergartens, as well as about the fact that many teachers are not being prescreened to asses their background and education.

(Hebrew - Walla)

A group of concerned parents is trying to protest what they view as a growing  extremist bent in religious schools.  One of the group members, an employee of the Ministry of Education, was summoned for a talking-to and told to stop her activities against the Education Ministry.  One example of extremism cited by the group members is that “at the end of the year event the fathers won’t be able to see the girls perform and that there will even be separate events for boys and girls.”

Rabbi Yuval Alpert, head of the gar’in torani [Orthodox socially-active "seed" group] of Jaffa, sees the joint education of Jews and Arabs in Jaffa [a historically mixed city] as a danger, and is working towards the creation of a separate education system for Jews.

(Hebrew)