Patches on the education minister's eyes

The destruction of state education started years ago, immediately after Israel's leaders decided to allocate public funds to private schools. The first to gnaw at state education was the ultra-Orthodox system, whose leaders demanded complete autonomy for their schools. But the state's leaders were responsible for this; they agreed because of their lust for power.

Then came the national-religious, who demanded in the name of equality - and received - permission to establish their own private schools. This is how religious state education collapsed. Then came various secular groups, who set up several private schools of their own.

The Education Ministry's attempt to stop the drift failed because of the equality principle. Thus we became divided tribes. But there are still ways to deal with the catastrophe.

It is imperative to stop allocating licenses to operate private schools so easily. The 1969 law on supervising schools must be amended to stipulate that the threshold for opening a private school is not 11 students but 300 - two classes of 25 students in each of the six grades, every year.

The current situation is insane. It is impossible economically to maintain a school for 11, 30 or even 80 students. A faltering private school acutely needs funding. This puts pressure on the political system, which of course leads to the earmarking of funds at the public's expense.

This amendment - requiring at least 300 students - will lead to a merger of many of the tiny private schools. To survive they will have to discover the beauty of integration. This solution depends on the Knesset. But considering the people there today, another solution should be sought.

It is wrong for the state to finance 75 percent of the private schools' costs. Why should the people who send their children to a private school be eligible for state funding? State funding must be stopped entirely. When the price of attending a private school rises, many parents will send their children back to the state school, especially when monthly tuition in the private schools soars to NIS 3,000.

The education minister can amend the law swiftly so that the 75 percent state support is replaced by zero. Private-school costs could be alleviated by revoking an anachronistic amendment from 1953 stipulating that private-school teachers are paid the same as teachers in the state education system.

It's none of the state's business how much private-school teachers are paid, no more than the level of private engineers' wages, which the state does not intervene in. Here, too, the education minister can swiftly rescind this draconic amendment. This will reduce the political pressure to burrow into the public coffers.

But it is doubtful whether any of this will happen. The education minister's eyes are covered by patches, as were his predecessors'. The first patch is the Independent Education Center - the ultra-Orthodox Ashkenazi school system - which recent verdicts by the High Court of Justice have deemed racist toward its students and infringing on its employees' rights. The second patch is Shas' Ma'ayan Hahinuch Hatorani schools.

With these patches on our eyes everyone knows what the final stop is - wiping out state education in Israel.

The writer is an attorney specializing in education law and a former head of the Justice Ministry's funds-allocation division.