The education system in Jerusalem is possibly the most divided in Israel, according to a report issued recently by the Education Ministry and published Wednesday by The Marker, covering the school year 5774 (2013-14). For one thing, it has a huge majority of ultra-Orthodox and Arab students, who receive a significantly lower-than-average investment and only limited monitoring from the state. Secular state schools in Jerusalem receive an annual budget of roughly $5,000 per student, while Arab schools, who are located mostly in eastern Jerusalem, receive almost half of that — a little over $2,500 annually. These figures refer to a period before Education Minister Naftali Bennett took office, but according to The Marker things haven’t changed much since.
Approximately 41% of Jerusalem schoolchildren are Haredi, most of whom do not study the core-curriculum subjects (Math, English), and monitoring of their schools is limited if at all. The annual budget per Haredi student is roughly only $2,300 on average. This is because the majority of Haredi schools in Jerusalem are privately owned and operated, and because their administrations tend to discourage monitoring, disregard the directives on teaching the core-curriculum subjects, and neglect to report the number and identity of the teachers they employ.
About 38% of elementary school children in Jerusalem are Arab, who receive lower budgets than their Jewish counterparts. This has to do with the fact that these schools are using the Palestinian Authority study material and are tested under the PA matriculation exams. It so happens that the Israeli education ministry calculates its budget for schools based on the number of students who are qualified to take the Israeli matriculation exams.
But there are other reasons for the gap in budgeting between the majority students — Haredi and Arab — and everyone else. Secular education, especially in high school, is more expensive, especially when it comes to the sciences, which require labs; athletics — gym and track facilities; and technology-based subjects. So that while the lower grades across the board may be about equal in their budgetary needs, the higher grades in secular schools bring in much more money than their Haredi counterparts.
Being associated with coalition parties also helps. The Ma’ayan school system, which is run by the Shas party, receives about $3,600 per student annually, and UTJ-affiliated schools take in about $2,800 per student, while the rest of the Haredi schools in the capital receive only about $1,000 per student each year.