15 YBA schools included among the top schools in Israel

The Ministry of Education released last week its list of top ranking high schools in Israel. This is the third time that the ministry has used a ranking system featuring a variety of parameters to determine which schools are the leading "value-laden" schools in the country, rather than basing school ranking solely the percent of students matriculating for admittance to institutions of higher education. According to the ministry's ranking system, 15 of the top 261 high schools (6%) belong to the Yeshivot Bnei Akiva educational network in Israel.

YBA Director General,
Elchanan Glatt

 Elchanan Glatt, Director General of YBA, said in response to the publication of the new ranking, "We are proud of our faculty members, who invest in each and every student. These rankings show that education toward Torah values and excellence go hand in hand. We will continue in this path of value-laden education, because we are convinced that it is the right way."

The teachers in the top 261 schools were rewarded with salary bonuses raging from $750 to $2,000 based on their school's relative position on the list. 

 

The relative weighting of the various measures were adjusted this year, after critics of the new ranking system last year claimed that the weighting favored schools in the religious Zionist sector. Even after the adjustments, however, about 40% of the top 261 schools this year were from religious Zionist educational networks.

The ranking system measures applied to over a thousand high schools in Israel included:

• individual instruction plans according to each student's abilities and disabilities
• consistency of ongoing faculty involvement in the implementation of instruction plans
• level of faculty in-service training for ongoing professional advancement
• inclusion of special needs students in school framework and extent of mainstreaming
• faculty interventions to reduce student drop-out rate
• percentage of graduates serving in IDF and National Service
• involvement of students in voluntary community service projects (Tikun Olam)
• percentage of graduates achieving full matriculation certificates and average scores
• level of studies offered in Humanities, Mathematics and the exact Sciences
• maintaining a matriculation examination process free of irregularities
• rate of improvement in all parameters over previous year's scores

The YBA (yeshiva) and UBA (ulpana) high schools making the top schools list are:

1. YBA Kinor David, Ateret .........................(joined YBA in 2010; 120 students)
2. YBA Beit Shmuel, Hadera ........................(established in 1962; 210 students)
3. YBA Pirchei Aharon, Kiryat Shmuel .......(established in 1961; 317 students)
4. YBA Lapid Torat Nachum, Modiin .........(established in 1998; 823 students)
5. YBA Ra'anana, Ra'anana ..........................(established in 1960; 308 students)
6. YBA Sussya, Sussya ..................................(established in 1998; 158 students)
7. YBA Aderet, Bat Yam ...............................(established in 1970; 274 students)
8. UBA Neot Avraham, Arad ........................(established in 1968; 163 students)
9. UBA Orot Modiin, Modiin ........................(established in 1998; 713 students)
10. UBA Segula, Kiryat Motzkin ......................(established in 1965; 529 students)
11. UBA Neve Ruchama, Jerusalem ................(joined YBA in 2008; 288 students)
12. UBA Or Akiva, Or Akiva ...........................(established in 2000, 111 students)
13. UBA Reut, Petach Tikvah ...........................(joined YBA in 1984, 353 students)
14. UBA Neria, Neria ........................................(established in 2004; 279 students)
15. UBA Tzfira, Zafaria ....................................(established in 1967; 626 students)
16. UBA Ramat Karniel, Kfar Pines ................(established in 1960; 458 students)