Public attention is rightfully riveted to war events, the hostages and their families, and now a missile attack, but in point of fact, the very need to focus our resources on the existential challenge looming over us makes it vital that the social systems, foremost amongst them the education system, function as steadily as possible in these troubled times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the past month, high school classes were thrown into disarray, and they may be even more disrupted after the Passover holiday, if they take place at all. The last thing students in Israel need right now are strikes and sanctions that disrupt their routine and classes, as though they have nothing else to be concerned about. They should be concerned only with what is normal for them under regular conditions: test scores \u2013 including the marks that influence their \u201cbagrut<\/em>\u201d scores, class trips that can break up the monotony of study, educational trips to Poland etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How cynical of the Teachers\u2019 Association to disrupt classes at a time like this, and burden not only parents and students with unnecessary stress, but those teachers who are impatient for a signed agreement. After all, the governing principles of the agreement were already signed back in August, and the usual practice is to continue discussing the details in light of the agreements arrived at during negotiations. Now Ran Erez has backtracked on all his agreements from the summer and re-opened all points of contention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It might have been tolerable if one could argue that the teachers\u2019 association was attempting to win better conditions for teachers, but that it not the case. The Teachers\u2019 Association is not renegotiating the issue of teachers\u2019 salaries; the entire controversy is only about the degree of its control over teachers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first issue is personal contracts. The agreement with the Teachers\u2019 Association was that teachers with expertise could be hired at high salaries while giving up on tenure. Many teachers prefer better working conditions over tenure and the protection it offers from being fired. They believe in the quality they bring to the job and want to be compensated for such, rather than be protected from principals who might not find them favorable. For the Teachers\u2019 Association, however, this is a matter of power and control \u2013 teachers working under personal contracts will not pay membership fees to the association and will not act as obedient soldiers to the Association\u2019s orders. Are a large number of teachers interested in personal contracts? The Association is uninterested in knowing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The other two issues Ran Erez has backtracked on are also about power. The Ministry of Finance, interested in rewarding excellence as well as tenure, is willing to grant school principals a flexible budget with which to reward teachers of excellence. Since such an arrangement removes control over payments from Ran Eraz, however, he raises objections. Do teachers who see themselves worthy of such compensation understand that the one doing his best to sabotage such reward is the one representing them in the negotiations? Of course, they haven\u2019t voted for him and can\u2019t replace him, so their opinion doesn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The third and final issue is shortening termination procedures. Currently, only a miniscule number of teachers out of tens of thousands are fired every year. Is it that, alone of all professions, in the teaching profession every person who enters the workforce and attains tenure also happens to be an excellent professional who shouldn\u2019t be fired? Of course that isn\u2019t the case, the truth is that termination procedures last around two years, and require energy and resources that school principals simply don\u2019t have. In the past two years, MK Sharren Haskel has been trying to pass a bill that will allow the suspension of teachers who face criminal proceedings, but this bill is thwarted time and again by the associations. Again, this is a struggle for power and control, not concern for improving the teaching body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n