attacks on the country by hostile countries and sabateurs. It is remarkable the children can keep their grades up as high as they do and rand 40th among 57 nations. Many families have both parents working and the children are often alone after school with no one to guide them in their studies to limit playtime. Perhaps the nation should include the children of Israel in their prayers, asking the Lord to help them with their studies.

Arab Students' poor grades drag Israel down to bottom third. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/124414

becouse it isnt gonna go their score :|

#1 Pray more and we'll be smart again. Why not send some Yeshiva students to the test and we'll rank first - from the end. #2 As in all countries, stupid students drag the ranking down; ever thought about more education for those that need it more?!

Reading too much into a series of tests prepared by some foreign burocracy is insane. The fact that China ranked first in math and actually ranks pretty low on the Human Rights scale (falun gong etc..) is pretty suspicious. In any case, it has been proved over and over again that most academic type tests suffer from cultural biases... and it is almost impossible to see how anything that might have been translated from the chinese or for the chinese could in any ways remain meaning to yeshiva trained students... let alone typical teenagers in any other country.

why should anyone be surprised???? look at the teachers and at the salaries they are receiving for their work. they also have to deal with SEVERE discipline problems and they rarely get any support from the principal and definitely not from the parents. If we are not going to change something in the system we will continue to see a deterioration all around. Look at our government leaders. They all have some "file" attached to their name. do you think that the students are dumb and do not realize that the entire government is CORRUPT and that they are only busy worrying about their personal affairs and not taking care of their ministries. IT is an absolute disgrace. I am advising my children - n grandchilden to leave here as soon as possible. I see no future in this country any longer. It's very sad to say this but I feel it is true.

No doubt too many students (40 pupils) per class does not help the pupil or the teacher. Furthermore if the tests were taken by some arab students then no doubt they pulled down the average marks.

You forgot to mention that it was the Arab students' scores that dragged us down.

More schools instead of more war. More education instead of more land. A smarter Israel, not a Greater Israel.

the scores should officially be divided for Israeli Jews and Israeli Non-Jews. More education for Arabs? Are you kidding? All they're interested in is how to destroy Israel.

It never ceases to amaze me how most of the talkbacks are aimed at doubting the facts stated, especially if they are critical of Israel. Fatcs are facts. The education system in Israel is in shambles after years/decades of neglect. It is difficult for a nation to spend any money on items other than its security given the threats that Israel has to contend with. That being said, misallocation of funds, coalition payouts given as part of the awkward political system in place, all take their toll on the available resources devoted to education.

Israeli children have no discipline and this is the parents' fault - overindulgence and too much "freedom of expression" which leads to serious problems in the classroom. It is exactly the attitude of many of the talkbackers, finding excuses, that causes this situation.

Obviously the solution to this problem is a long, long, protracted teachers' strike.

Well Joseph, not just that - also the land!

How do you spell: Dysfunctional Government Accountability Irresponsible If you can spell the above words & know what they mean ,than you know why the scores were so low.

I am sure that the religious sector would do much better because all the learning is reading based, and they take reading very seriously. Also they actually learn how to read, ie. start with letters, advance to vowels, and then to words, as opposed to the secular system of "recognising words"

If you have a guest residing in YOUR home, is he eligible to automatically receive half your home? Israel belongs to the Jews. That's a fact according to the Torah (Bible, if it's easier for you to understand). The Jews, known as hospitable people, welcome non-Jews to their "home". Does that mean we have to give them half of our "home"? In fact, much of our G-d given land was already taken away from us by the Arabs and they (you) still have the chutzpa to ask for more? If the Arabs don't want to live here as guest, they may move to one of their own 21 countries. The government of Israel has no right to give away any territory to anyone. It belongs to all the Jews worldwide.

these people believe in nothing. one would not trust these clowns on an errand to buy a liter of milk. the sad, sad fact is that they have wormed their way into positions which control the future of the nation.

They should be forced to return their salaries. And let us waste more money on elderly immigrants,welfare cheats,child allowances to draft dodgers' families.

Finland was the highest performing country on the PISA science scale and the second highest-performing country in reading. Finland and Korea, and the partners Chinese Taipei and Hong Kong-China, outperformed all other countries/economies in mathematical literature.... So I guess it´s pretty good to live in a country like this... The standards of education here are among the best of the world and a lot better than in the US. And I don´t have to worry about being a sacrifice lamb of Iranians, like I would be in Israel, where people are waiting their American "friends" (who are nothing but traitors as recent news have shown) to come and save them by attacking Iran. So yes, it´s good to live here, away from stupidity, naivety and security threats. Israelis are depending on Americans too much, they should learn to survive on their own.

As a strong American supporter of Israel, I am beginning to wonder how my donations to Israel are being used. Evidently, Israel's greatest natural resource, the intellectual capability of its youngsters, is not being taken care of by the Israeli government. After reading about the dysfunctional and corrupt nature of the Israeli political establishment, it is not difficult to understand the poor results of this testing. Therefore , it may be necessary for American charities that give money to Israel to more closely monitor how this money is being used if the Israeli government proves incapable of improving the Israeli schools. Before anything is done, it will be important for impartial and neutral experts to try to understand why Israeli schools are doing so poorly and to make recommendations that will be vital for Israel's security. The US also does poorly in international educational testing. However, The US has some very excellent public and private schools that score well. Unfortun ately, the US also has some poorly funded and low achieving schools in neighborhoods that do not value education and that is one reason why American test scores are low. This may be the reason for Israel's poor performance.

The PISA results don´t correlate with IQ comparisons between nations. In Lynn-Vanhanen research Austrians and Germans and Italians have an IQ of 102, Swedes 101 and Belgians 100, while Finns only have 97. But the school system here is a lot more demanding than it is in many countries. We study integral and differential calculus at the age of 16 for example. We have to learn about European, American and even Israeli history. Most of all there are no private sectors of education in Finland, education is completely FREE, and we all go to public schools so there are no differences between wealthy people and the working class. Health care is also free. Taxes are pretty high, that is the main factor that enables all this.

...and how many children of immigrants do you have in your schools? I ask because Germans face the same problems like Israelis. Thanks, Gabi