Tel Aviv school heads evade order not to help problem students

High-school principals are ignoring the order to put students in the middle of a monetary dispute between the Education Ministry and teachers.

By MIRIAM BULWAR DAVID-HAY (TRANSLATED)
Ran Erez 88 224 (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
Ran Erez 88 224
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
Secondary School Teachers' Association head Ran Erez has instructed his members to stop giving students with learning difficulties special assistance because of a pay dispute with the Education Ministry, but Tel Aviv's secondary-school principals are quietly disobeying the order, reports www.mynet.co.il. The principals said they felt they had to continue to help students with learning difficulties as it was "an outrage" to make them the victims of a dispute between the ministry and teachers. According to the report, Erez distributed a letter to secondary-school teachers saying that the ministry had promised a year ago to recompense teachers for any extra work they did helping students with learning difficulties, but it had since avoided acting on its promise. "In light of this, all special extra work with students with learning difficulties should be stopped immediately," Erez wrote. He then went on to specify that students with learning difficulties should now be kept in regular classes and be treated like regular students, and should not be given special classes, time extensions, special projects or special tests. But Tel Aviv's school principals said they would not allow the students with learning difficulties to suffer in this way. "This is an outrage," one principal said. "It is impossible to harm students with learning difficulties to this extent. What we are doing quietly, inside the walls of the school, is compensating students with learning difficulties with better scores. For instance, if a regular student needs to answer 10 questions correctly to get a score of 100, then a student with learning difficulties will be given 100 for seven correct answers. Students with learning difficulties should not be the victims of financial friction." An Education Ministry spokesman said the ministry had agreed to compensate teachers for their extra work with students with learning difficulties and had every intention of fulfilling its commitment. The spokesman said the ministry was "surprised" by Erez's letter and was "sorrowful" that he was urging teachers to act against their consciences, and added that the ministry believed that teachers would not harm their students.