Duh what do you expect when the quality of the teachers in Elementary schools here differ from school to school.My daughter had a science teacher in 5th grade that said the rubber handle on a screwdriver is so that it doesn't get hot when you use it! the real answer is so that it doesn't conduct electricity which my daughter told the teacher, but the teacher insisted my daughter was worng...needless to say I went to the principal about that one! In 6th grade the science teacher said there was no such thing as Faregnheit when they were discussing tempeture! So it is not a far leap to realized why our kids don't do well in Science with teachers like my daughter had. As for math, that is another Duh ,when a math teacher cannot add up numbers correctly to grade a test that tells the same story too! Get better teachers if you want higher marks on these international exams!

if she is the best they have to offer, we certainly don't need labor.

Only super-liberal policies by the Lefties could destroy the Israeli educational system so quickly.

I'm, of course, paraphrasing George Bush' praising FEMA director Brown for his performance dealing with the Katrina disaster. Yuli, term has similarly been a failure. On the other hand, Israeli youngsters are better acquainted with the so-called Nakba! Tamir would consider that progress.

from the end of the list.

for creating each days dozens of uneducated children. Mix and stir one cup of "smallanim" with one cup of "charedim" and you'll get a delicious cocktail for the level of the israeli education.

Maybe if this founder of Peace Now had been more interested in math & science and less interested in politiicising the education system by adding the palestinian nakba to it and taking zionist issues off the agenda then maybe things would be a little better. Also the political system itself allows this to happen. Only about 1 - 2 weeks earlier the education budget had been slashed because the government said there wasnt enough money but then as soon as Livni inherited Olmerts crown and she was trying to put together a coalition she offered tens of millions of dollars to Shas if they joined a coalition. where did that money come from? Governments always seem to find enough money to buy off coalitions so they can stay in power. End the coalition system you end that Why is the taxpayer paying millions every year to provide Moshe Katsav in expensive offices in downtown Tel Aviv with a private secretary, luxury car and security provided by Shin Bet at taxpayer expense Lets also stop wasting money on projects we start and dont finish. Israel invested millions in the THEL kassem defense laser system but it went way over budget so it pulled out the system. Instead after Lebanon decided to try develop the IRON DOME system from scratch at a cost of many more millions and its not even practical and cost around $50,000 per interceptor rocket It hasnt been proven to work because of the short distances kassems travel, its to expensive. Why not pick up on a system that did work in tests but development costs had gone overbudget or in a short term why not buy an American rapid fire cannon currently used succesfully in Iraq? Instead for political reasns we decided to invest in a system that wasnt on the drawing board and is still around 1 year away at least In the 80s the Lavi it was cheaper to build & run than F16, it culd be converted easily into a trainer so no need to buy extra training aircraft and it was superiot to F16. It went overbudget but just when the things was almost ready for mass production the government canceled the project and went for the more expensive F16. Lavi would have also been able to eventualy be an export product but for short term savings it led to long term expenses. The average individual can balance their own books better than the politicians balances the countries books.

area communities and I think of the wasted money that could be going into your schools. Deal with the nut jobs that plague your borders and you'll have plenty of money to spend on your schools.

these scores and a majority left population. :P

Although Israel did not score among the top nations, it did outpace Egypt, Kuwait and Iran. (...) Israel scored higher than Lebanon, Jordan, Thailand and Indonesia, among others. (...) In 2003, Israel's scores rose to 19th place in mathematics and 23rd place in the sciences – both significant improvements compared to the five years prior to that. In the 60s, Israel used to rank 1st in similar competitions. Nowadays, we compare ourselves to Thailand, Kuwait and Indonesia.

There's a professor who I'll leave nameless, mostly because I don't remember his exact name. He was hired after the 2003 results (or was it before the 2003 test?) to examine why in the test children did badly. He discovered that Israeli children lacked depth of mathematics (e.g. did know it but lacked comprehension of what the equations actually mean and how they work) and relied too much on a calculator to do basic division, multiplication and other things. So he made recommendations that helped. Israel then came out 19th, an improvement of several spots from the time before. After a year (or so) he left the education ministry and they abandoned the program. To my knowledge this has nothing DIRECT to do with Tamir or Livnat, but rather his leaving. If that's true (and I don't know the exact details of why it was abandoned) it shows great incompetence within the Education ministry as a whole, not just on the minister.

Now it seems they have Bamba for brains...

MY ADVICE TO KIDS : If you want better grades, get better parents.....! MY ADVICE TO PARENTS : If you want better schools, get better teachers .....! MY ADVICE TO TEACHERS : If you want better classroom curriculum, get a real education minister .....! MY ADVICE TO ALL: If you want better grades, better parents, better schools, better education, better kids, better minister of education, get a better Govt. .....! MY FINAL ADVICE : Don't look for scapegoats -- "the enemy is us .....!

OOPS !, I forgot: KIDS, you did oupace Egypt, thank G.d; but please do not try to outdo Ghana .....!

Discrimination of Arab sector with its under-funded school system has its share too.

Israel is becoming too secular...hence the low test scores. There is a direct co-relation between secularism and lower test scores for countries embracing and adopting secularism. Look up the stats.

The problem is not bad demography. THE PROBLEM is that they are at the same level of our kids not smarter. Same teachers, same classes, same everything.

I think the class size does not help, My Children have about 38 pupils in a class, I think this is unexceptable. Dont blame the teachers, infact stop putting the blame on anybody and just deal with the problem, smaller classes should be the first step.

as I wrote in my comment in #16, I knew the story, I just forgot the details (name, exact time he was working on it) and didn't want to get the details wrong and mislead anyone. The story is what has happened though, I know because he has told someone I know this story only a few weeks ago.

Don't brag about it. HE is part of the problem, and a BIG one.

not at all surprising. saw it happening 10 years ago and left the system. until the salaries are raised for teachers and more respect is given to them - it is a lost case. parents need to keep out of the system. they are too critical and thier children are always right.