Why does one child receive ten thousand shekels more than another?

It is called the "Green Booklet," but it is not a booklet; it is a bulky document. This year, for example, it has 221 pages. It is published every year before the start of the school year and is effectively the official document on "Ministry of Education participation in the budget of local authorities and owners" in secondary education. The ministry publishes tables, formulas, numbers, and matrices in it — it looks more like a math test than a reference guide for principals trying to understand what budget they will receive in the school year. You can't see the forest for the trees, but within all this, reality is hidden. It is hard to see, but it is important to do so. And this is the reality: under the guise of supposedly neutral budgeting formulas, the state discriminates between the state education system and the state-religious education system (Hamad). Institutionally, systematically, tabularly, coldly, Hamad students receive more, much more, than students of the state-Hebrew system (state-Arab students receive even less). This happens because of study contents unique to them — but also in budgets that are supposed to reach all students in all streams equally. This is the conclusion presented by researchers at the Manor Center, which works to strengthen public education in Israel. They dove into the Green Booklet, analyzed the hundreds of winding ways in which budgets flow from the Ministry of Education to schools, and mapped the sources of the budgeting gaps between Hamad students and state students. They did this as part of a petition filed by the Manor Center to the Supreme Court against this discrimination in secondary education. In response to the petition, by the way, the state replied that by and large that's how it is, admitted the gaps, but did not insist on their sources. The comprehensive work of the researchers, which exposes the depth of the gaps and their roots, should trouble every parent in the state education system, which is still the largest in Israel. If we are already condemning ourselves to separation between sectors in the education system, at least let us not discriminate. And it is impossible to deny the discrimination anymore. The demand for budgetary strengthening of the components of state identity is more than justified.

Let's start with the forest, and then we will mark the trees. The only things the state and the Manor Center agree on is that there is a gap, and what its size is. A student in the upper division (7th grade and up) in Hamad receives every year about ten thousand shekels more, on average, than a student in the state system. This is an inconceivable gap in a system that is supposed to be egalitarian, because every child is a child. And this gap does not narrow over the years, it only grows — in the last ten years it has jumped from 18% to 26%. So that's the forest, and the Ministry of Education itself admits it's there. But now let's look at the trees. When the Manor Center petitioned the Supreme Court against the very existence of the budgetary gap, the state replied what it always replies — the gap is not new — and it is that Hamad students receive unique study hours that do not exist in state education. This means reinforcement hours for the matriculation exam in Judaism (Hamad students are required to have a higher number of compulsory study units for matriculation) and funding for rabbis who work in schools. Therefore, the budgetary gap, the state claims, is not discrimination, but a result of the differences between the streams. But what the Manor Center researchers discovered is that these unique budgetary additions do not explain the entire gap, but only 23%-40% of it (depending on which school year you look at). Where does the rest come from? Researchers Orit Pais-Avidan and Ofir Gilboa looked for the answer in the budget book of the State of Israel. They didn't find it there. The budget book, even at its highest resolution, does not reach a high enough resolution. So they dove deeper, into all the available databases of the Ministry of Education itself. They scanned the Green Booklet, the one that details to educational institutions what the rules are, how the budgeting formulas work, and on what basis money is transferred. They checked 300 budgetary formulas, "subject codes" in the Ministry of Education's language. And they delved into all the data of Meitar, a computerized system that reflects to its users how much money was actually transferred from the Ministry of Education to each educational institution and for what, down to the shekel, including duplication fees. This was truly painstaking work, but at its end, the researchers could see for the first time also what the Ministry of Education itself did not know how to tell the Supreme Court: that the gaps are not a mistake, and they are not a necessity derived from differences between the streams. They are a clear policy of discrimination.

The researchers found the explanations for the entire gap, and at their center are two main reasons: "Oz LeTmura" and "Muchzakut." "Oz LeTmura" is the major wage reform that was carried out in the secondary education system in 2011. As part of that agreement, it was determined that teachers would receive a budget (i.e., salary) not only for frontal teaching hours but also for other working hours. This allows them to sit individually with students who need a little more educational attention, and receive a salary for the time they invest in preparing lessons, checking exams, accompanying and advising students. This agreement created a new budgeting mechanism: for every additional teaching hour the school receives, teachers automatically receive more accompanying hours, those in which they do not teach in class. And therefore, when Hamad schools receive unique budgets for teaching hours to strengthen the matriculation in Judaism, they receive more budgets for non-frontal hours, more than other schools. This addition alone explains almost half of the remaining budgetary gap. And what is "Muchzakut"? This is the Ministry of Education's term for over-budgeting for schools that meet all sorts of criteria — periphery (geographical or social), confrontation line, and so on. A check by the researchers shows that Hamad schools benefit more from these budgets, not necessarily because of their geographical location but because of their size. Religious schools tend to be much smaller than regular ones. 70% of upper division students in Hamad study in schools of up to 300 students (sometimes these are schools of two classes per grade), while in the state-Hebrew education, most students, almost 80%, study in schools of 300 to 1,200 students. The very small size of Hamad institutions is derived from the separation between boys and girls and between different religious communities. And the Ministry of Education's formulas give extra budgets to tiny schools — a result of long-standing coalition budget additions and "budgetary plumbing," that is, the adaptation of the supposedly neutral formulas to the characteristics of Hamad, so that they receive more. This is not affirmative action, this is pampering preference. And this leads to a growing budgetary gap in favor of Hamad. The Manor Center seeks to close this gap. Not necessarily by deducting budgets from religious education, but by creating unique budgets also for state-Hebrew education.

At the Manor Center, they are currently working on creating new budgeting formulas, ones that will increase budgets for state-Hebrew schools. They demand from the Ministry of Education, for example, to recognize the unique identity characteristics of this stream and add budgets for reinforcement hours in the humanities — philosophy, culture, Hebrew literature, Zionism, and Jewish thought. They want budgets for establishing study centers (Beit Midrash) that will be adapted for state education. They ask to strengthen the role of educators so that they will be more significant for the students. Seminars, conversations, educational experiences. The goal? "That graduates of state-Hebrew education will leave the education system with knowledge, emotional connection, and a conscious identity backbone." Yes, yes, just like in Hamad. If they get it, why don't these? I don't like the situation where the state education stream is forced to demand budgetary additions just to receive the obvious, what Hamad students receive. I would prefer that there be no education streams at all. What I would really like is for all children and teenagers to study together, in truly state frameworks. If from a young age we had studied with each other, played with each other, known the cultural differences and also the commonalities, if we had grown up like this all together — including the Haredim and the Arabs — it is likely that the internal frictions between us would have subsided, not increased. The choice to separate only deepened the rifts. So maybe it's time to try a different way after all? I know this is a private wish that most Israelis probably don't share. I recognize reality. But reality can also be improved. If we are already condemning ourselves to separation between sectors in the education system, at least let us not discriminate. For years, the state public was used to being the sovereign. To being the hegemon. To being the elite. As such, it "let" the religious public a little slack, in the form of educational independence accompanied by large budgets, so that it wouldn't feel deprived, and wouldn't rebel. But in the meantime, the exchange of elites is almost complete, and the Manor Center's demand for budgetary strengthening of the components of state identity is more than justified. This is the forest, these are the trees, it's time to stop denying their existence. Have a successful school year, and may it be continuous.