Session Information
WERA SES 07 C, International Study on School Autonomy and 21st Century Learning--Symposium B: Hong Kong, Israel, & Singapore
Symposium
Contribution
Since the establishment of the State of Israel (1948), the educational system has gone through major development stages (Elboim-Dror, 2001), most of which were a result of the historical events that have taken place. With the mass immigration to Israel, at a period of economic distress (the 1950s) through the emergence of the problem of the disadvantaged students, there was a growing interest in reducing social gaps and encouraging equal opportunity in education. Since the 1970s, the Israeli Ministry of Education (MOE) has introduced a number of restructuring initiatives aimed towards decentralizing the educational system and increasing school control (Nir & Eyal, 2003). The decentralization policies in Israel have called for increased school autonomy, but at the same time, maintained central regulations and control mechanisms which undermined school autonomy (Inbar, 1987). Consequently, school autonomy became an abstract notion with no likelihood to be truly implemented. With the population and economic growth of the 1990s, and the advent of information and communication technology for teaching and learning, new reforms appeared, emphasizing notions of liberalism and individual freedom, equality and civil rights, and a move toward market economy and privatization (Bogler, 2014). In 1992, the MOE commissioned a steering committee that aimed at examining the possibility of extending the scope of school autonomy and introducing school-based management into the Israeli system, (Volansky & Bar-Elli, 1996). By the beginning of the 21st century, a third of the country's schools became self-managing (Volansky, 2007). Concurrent with the developments described in the area of school autonomy, the MOE generated over the years a series of curricular and pedagogical reform efforts centering on two of the components highlighted by 21st Century Skills documents: the development of students’ higher order thinking and the development of computer literacy (e.g. Ministry of Education, 1992; 2005; 2014). Rather than creating a revolutionary change that transformed learning and instruction in a substantial way, each of these reforms left traces in the system that are more similar to the small steps characterizing an evolutionary change (Zohar, 2013). In our presentation, we will review the milestones in the development of school autonomy policies and the effects of school autonomy on school outcomes in the Israeli context, ending with a description of our study plan and progress in the project. Selected examples of the curricular and pedagogical reforms will also be reviewed and analyzed, and their relationships with school autonomy efforts will be discussed.
References
Bogler, R. (2014). The elusive character of the school superintendent role: The Israeli case. In A. E. Nir (Ed). The Educational superintendent: Between trust and regulation. An international perspective. NY: Nova Science Pub. pp. 75-90. Elboim-Dror, R. (2001). Israeli education: Changing perspectives. Israel Studies, 6(1), 76-100. Inbar, D. (1987). Is autonomy possible in a centralized education system? In Isaac A. Friedman (Ed.). Autonomy in education: Conceptual framework and implementation processes. Jerusalem: The Henrietta Szold Institute. pp. 53-71 (Hebrew). Ministry of Education. (1992). The Report of the Top Committee for Scientific and Technological Education. Jerusalem: MOE. Ministry of Education (2005). The National Task Force for the Advancement of Education in Israel- Because Every Child Deserves More. Jerusalem: MOE Ministry of Education. (2014). Moving towards meaningful learning http://cms.education.gov.il/EducationCMS/Units/LemidaMashmautit/mashmautit/HagdaraMashmautit.htm , retrieved January 2015. Volansky, A. (2007). School autonomy for school effectiveness and improvement: The case of Israel. In T. Townsend (Ed.). International handbook on school effectiveness and improvement. N.Y.: Springer. pp. 351-362. Volansky, A., & Bar-Elli D. (1996). Moving toward equitable school-based management. Educational Leadership 53(4), 60-62. Zohar, A. (2013). It’s not all about test scores: reviving pedagogical discourse. Ramat Gan: Hakibutz Hameuchad
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