Adalah Asks Education Minister Not to Implement Proposed Discriminatory Criteria for Allocation of Funding
On 28 October 2002, Adalah sent a letter to the Minister of Education, Limor Livnat, asking her not to implement the recommendations of the Shoshani Committee. Adalah Staff Attorney Gadeer Nicola argued in the letter that the Committee's recommendations discriminate against Arab students in Israel.
The Shoshani Committee was established by the Ministry of Education to evaluate the way in which the Ministry allocates funding to schools in Israel, and to recommend changes that would promote the principle of equality. In its final report, issued in August 2002, the Committee proposed a system of weighted criteria that would determine the allocation of education funding on a per-student basis.
Under the proposed system, students would be allocated "points" according to seven criteria, which are ostensibly designed to take into account the socio-economic status and educational attainment levels of each student. According to the number of points they receive, students would be grouped into ten categories, each of which would receive a different level of funding. Schools would receive funding based on how many students they have enrolled in each category.
In its letter, Adalah objected to three of the proposed criteria, which entirely exclude Arab students. Together, these three criteria account for 50% of the point allocation: (1) 20% for new Jewish immigrant students; (2) an additional 10% for Jewish immigrant students from poorer countries; and (3) 20% for students from towns that are on the National Priority List (NPL). Most Arab towns in Israel are excluded from the NPL, and the benefits that such a classification affords to residents, despite the fact that they consistently rank lowest on socio-economic indices.
Adalah highlighted the poor socio-economic conditions and educational attainment levels of Arab students, none of which are adequately taken into consideration by the Shoshani Committee's criteria. Adalah noted that in 2001, only 33.1% of Arab high school students passed the Bagrut exam, while 48.2% of Israeli Jewish students passed the exam. Adalah also cited performance statistics for the fourth-grade mathematics exam, in which Jewish Israeli children score, on average, 20-40% higher than their Arab counterparts.
Adalah stressed that the system proposed by the Shoshani Committee will not only fail to account for the needs of Arab students, but will further exacerbate existing disparities. The proposed system discriminates against Arab students, Adalah argued, and violates their rights to education and equality.
