Students in Israel who wish to enter institutes of higher education are required to hold a matriculation certificate. Matriculation exams are therefore high-stake and stressful. In 1993 the Minister of Education appointed a committee to consider reforming the matriculation policy. This paper describes the political and societal aspects of the…

This document reports on a study of structural characteristics in the administrative behavior of Israeli school administrators and compares the findings with similar studies conducted in the United States, Canada, and Australia. The sample consisted of eight high school administrators, whose on-the-job behavior was observed for 5 hours per day for…

This investigation documents the impact of the Van Leer Study, a large-scale evaluation study of achievement in the primary schools of Israel. It is intended to increase understanding of the process of evaluation utilization, showing how evaluation findings and other kinds of information can work together, over time and in a variety of ways, to…

A sample of curriculum projects representing the first generation of new curricula in Israel was analyzed, using an instrument developed to determine the implicit or explicit message regarding the teacher's role in curriculum development and use. Curriculum development in Israel is moving from a centralized approach to greater involvement of…

Investigated construct of career maturity in United States and Israel by assessing attitudes about career decision making among U.S. and Israeli ninth and twelfth grade students on the Career Maturity Inventory (CMI). Indicated differences across cultures in career maturity and sex differences on some individual subscales of the CMI. Showed grade…

The article describes various models of educating blind and visually impaired students in Israel, including residential schools, resource rooms, itinerant teachers, and joint and individual initiatives. Noted are the policy of encouraging mainstreaming and the autonomy of special educators in program planning. (Author/DB)

Report of a study from Israel that reveals that SBM positively affects teachers' commitment to the profession and students' academic achievement, and negatively affects their commitment to the school and students' social well-being. Further, teachers' autonomy remained unchanged after SBM was introduced. (Contains 4 figures, a questionnaire, and…

This brief paper reviews six studies which examined out-of-home placement by Israeli parents of children with severe developmental disabilities. Implications for policy and practice are drawn, including the need for respite-care services, extended hours in schools, recreation programs, support services for parents, and training programs for…

Based on intensive interviews and observations in a scientifically selected sample of over 100 Israeli schools, this study presents a detailed picture of the characteristics of school curricula and cultures, and the attitudes and expectations of students, teachers, principals, and parents with regard to curriculum and school culture in the…

This study describes the rationale and activities developed and tested by a project in Israel entitled Biology Critical Thinking (BCT). The BCT project aims at developing a pool of activities that can be incorporated within the regular course of study without investing too much extra time. The purposes of the study are: (1) to present the…

Three groups of sixth, eighth, and tenth graders took pre- and posttests on a Piagetian problem and a problem that evoked a misconception. Two intervention groups engaged in group transactions intended to create inter- and intrapersonal conflicts or took a multiple-choice test. Results indicated that treatment groups progressed on the Piagetian…

Advocates of school choice reform in education believe that when parents are granted the right to choose their child's school, they will act rationally, in a goal-oriented fashion, to maximize their educational utility by finding the "best" school for their children. The current qualitative study aims to examine these basic assumptions…

Describes an expert system designed to simplify evaluation of teacher-authored high school matriculation examination forms for official recognition. Because conventional knowledge-engineering methods were inadequate, a learning-by-example model called the Ordinal Learning Model was utilized. Responses from the system's users during a two-year beta…

Introducing a wider perspective of evaluation into the school by developing school-based evaluation mechanisms is discussed. The approach is based on conceptual development derived from U.S. perspectives on program evaluation, actual work in schools with teachers and principals in Israel, and empirical studies in the United States. (SLD)

A longitudinal ethnographic study of adolescent moral development in an Israeli kibbutz examined the process by which urban-born adolescents, "adopted" by the kibbutz, and their kibbutz-born peers are socialized into a cohesive group. Kibbutz educators support the development of democratic self-governing peer groups that foster community…