Years ago, I heard a Scout leader explain that the tribe must coalesce in consolidation, because only if the tribe is cohesive will the cohesion succeed in uniting everyone, and only then will everyone come out cohesive, or crystals, or lumps, I don't remember exactly.
A few days ago, Education Ministry Director General Assaf Tzalel, a pilot by profession, resigned. He said: "I never belonged to one side or the other and I don't choose one side even today. The education system is a state system, and it must be maintained as such. It must be taken now, recalculated course, and also used to mend the rifts."
If we break down his words, we can understand that the education system is "state" and that "it is important to preserve it," and apparently it did something wrong because it is necessary to "recalculate the course" and also "work to mend the rifts."
These words are not stately or obscure in their meaning - they express lack. Not just a deep lack of educational understanding, but a lack of educational vision.
This, of course, is not the fault of the pilot-CEO, who sees any organizational organization that must be organized because the organization requires organization, by changing course in a state manner, of course.
The blame falls on us, the citizens, who are unable to answer a simple question: What is the purpose of the education system? We can say that the role of the security establishment is to provide security to citizens, the role of the health system is to heal us, and the role of social security, railways and the post office is to wear us down. But what is the role of the education system?
In recent years, I have met quite a few pre-military preparatory students, energetic and motivated young people, and I present them with the following number: NIS 30,000 a year – that's the amount the state spent last year on your studies, and every year during the 12 years you've been in the system. Do you, the newest graduates of the education system, feel that you have received an education worth NIS 360,000 per student?
I've never heard the answer "yes." Sometimes I hear the answer "no." I usually get shocked.
If you're a parent, ask yourself or your children if you're getting a decent return. Imagine for a moment as if the education budget is literally out of your pocket. If at the beginning of each year you had to bring 30,000 NIS to the school principal in cash (instead of paying through tax) - what kind of education would you demand from the teachers? Would you use obscure words like "state" and "maintain the system" and "mending rifts," or would you use meaningful words like "achievements," "values," "quality," "metrics," and "grades"?
If your children's future were entrusted to you, and not to a huge bureaucratic system hiding behind statehood, how would you define its role? Would you send your children to 12 years of Orwellian "tear healing," or would you send them to study English, arithmetic, Hebrew, science, history and Torah? While officials explain to us that the role of the education system is to be "state," the teachers' unions succeed in convincing us that the role of the education system is only to provide jobs for as many dues-paying teachers as possible.
The teachers' unions tell us that there is a shortage of teachers, while they divide every standard of beginning teacher into job fragments, which increases their political power but reduces the number of quality hours and the salaries of beginning teachers.
Thus, new and quality teachers find themselves outside, and the students are left with mediocre teachers. Instead of competition for quality, we get a race to the bottom of seniority. This is happening because we, as citizens and parents, have failed in the need to define what we expect from the education system, and into our failure, into this vacuum, officials and organizations have cast "statehood", "seniority" and "100 days off".
On one thing, I agree with the outgoing CEO: we need to recalculate the course, we need to get out of the Mapainik way of thinking of a system that serves its committees, in favor of a system that serves its students.
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