Why try to help those that refuse to be helped but rely on extortion for finance.Let the government fall but cut taxes of the balance of the public.Arab education must be assisted. ?? Why ??What does Israel gain for the extra outlay--more suiside bombers?more protesting?Israel youngster are enrolled in the army for 3 years. Why do the arabs not do national service for 3 years??

Daniel Jeremiah ben David, our local prophet of doom

and not for large numbers of paper-pushing apparachniks from the Ministry of Educations. and not for their bloated pensions either. the total education budget is large enought - HOWEVERM, spend all funds on TEACHERS in the CLASSROOM

This Reuters article is out of date. If Reuters wanted to know about the education in Israel of the ultra-religous and the Arab sectors, it should have interviewed the Likud Minister of Education, Gideon Saar. Had Reuters done so, Minister Saar would have presented to the news agency the education reforms that have already been implemented in Likud's first year in office, as well as the additional reforms that will be introduced in the near future. Education reform was on Likud's recent election platIform, and it is being taken most seriously. Instead, Reuters interviewed some people that told it about the education policy of past Israeli governments. What a misleading article.

I don't think that Haredim anywhere can recite chapter & verse from the bible. Maybe the author is confusing the Haredim with the Amish? And even reciting Shulchan Aruch chapter & verse is not something every child masters. But if he does, he can't be far behind in math. Any student who can calculate the number of parasangs one could travel on the shortest night of the year re: the exact time of midnight, sunrise and the local time to begin praying...any student who can figure out how to maximize planting vegetables and produce in circular formations within a vinyard where the rim of each circle is no less than 4 cubits and each circle is viewed as having a width of 40 cubits but sparing any prohibited growth - he's gonna be okay when he gets to calculus. If there's a problem it's not the Haredim, it's the lack of equal funding and the poor educational availability for the poor. The wealthy who reward and insulate themselves in their pseudo-democracy should not complain about the underclass they never wanted to give a chance to in the first place.

There is a profound,important and dangerous misunderstanding and irony here. The great concern that the “religious” / Haradi schools do not teach the core ciriculum, math, English etc is subject to popular publicity, singular focus and great amounts of self satisfying and justified resentment and criticism. What is obscured is that the “religious” / Haradi schools do teach something far more important than core curriculum. That is the joy, skills and discipline of learning. While the secular schools do fulfill the requirements of math, English and other “secular” subjects most of the students seem to have no idea or interest in the educational process itself. The accomplishment of independent thinking and understanding seems absent if not from the curriculum than from the students themselves. What is really missing in the “religious” / Haradi school system is not the teaching of math & English and other “core” subjects but rather education about the complex society in which supports them and in which they actually live. Along with its history, and the theory and value of democracy.

...".haredim, who dress in distinctive black garb"... The situation is too sad, dangerous and depressing to hold on to the same old stereotypes (and as stereotypes go, they are not borne out by facts) - ever asked a university educated, jeans clad, with-it young man/woman to spell Egypt? You'd be amazed..... (Former university lecturer)