Pressure worked: Haredi education system agrees to participate in assessment tests

For the first time in its history, the Independent Education network of Agudat Yisrael has agreed to participate in national and international assessment tests in the coming year. The agreement was reached after negotiations that lasted three years and after cultural adjustments to the tests for Haredi students were agreed upon. International tests are usually conducted on a computer, and at this stage, the network has agreed only to tests that can be taken in a notebook. Thus, the Independent Education network joins the Bnei Yosef network of Shas, where a similar process has been advancing for several years.

The joining of the Haredi networks to the international tests is a result of the heavy pressure exerted by the Ministry of Finance and the Attorney General on the networks following a series of petitions to the Supreme Court by the Hiddush organization for religious freedom and equality. The agreement was reported by Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara to the Supreme Court on Friday in response to the Hiddush petition, which was filed with the demand to require the institutions of the Haredi party-affiliated education networks — the Independent Education of Agudat Yisrael and Bnei Yosef of Shas — to comply with all the rules of the core curriculum as a condition for continuing their funding on an equal basis with state education.

Baharav-Miara notified the Supreme Court that the continuation of full funding for the network institutions will be conditioned, starting from the coming school year, on full compliance with the rules of the core curriculum. This includes, among other things, full core studies according to a uniform program for the entire education system, the employment of teaching staff with appropriate qualifications, full participation in national and international assessment tests, cooperation with supervision and enforcement mechanisms, and compliance with reporting obligations. Baharav-Miara determined that it is not possible to continue fully funding education networks that ignore a significant portion of the state's requirements.

In her response, the Attorney General noted:

"Institutions found not to be fulfilling basic obligations, for example, not teaching subjects like English or mathematics in entire age groups, were classified by the Ministry of Education's supervision as institutions teaching over 95% of the core curriculum, and were funded accordingly. As a result, the supervision data does not properly reflect the full gaps."

The Attorney General concluded that the data indicate significant gaps in the scope of the core curriculum studied in the network institutions and in its quality. While full funding continued to be transferred as usual, some of the obligations were not enforced at all for years. This state of affairs cannot be accepted.

She further noted that against the backdrop of the dispute that arose with Minister of Education Yoav Kisch, who did not present an updated supervision and enforcement plan, and even believed that there is no necessity to establish a unified core curriculum or to require the institutions to teach 100% of the core curriculum, the Attorney General approved the Minister of Education's request for separate representation.