What are some basic facts about the school?
The Kedma School was founded in 1994 by a committed group of parents, educators and academics who sought to provide quality public education for children from poor and disadvantaged backgrounds, many whom are of Mizrahi heritage. Today there are 150 students enrolled at the school in grades 7 – 12. The contact information for the school is available here.

Is Kedma a municipal (public) school?
Yes, Kedma is a municipal public school. This means that the school receives government and municipal funds, and that the school is under the authority of the Ministry of Education.

Who can enroll at Kedma?
Anyone in 7th grade can enroll at Kedma, regardless of their educational record or past experience in school; under certain circumstances the school may also accept children up through 11th grade. When space is limited, the only preferential criterion is being a resident of the Katamonim/Patt neighborhood where the school is located.

How can I contribute to the school?
We warmly welcome financial contributions to the school, which go directly to enriching our students’ education through additional teaching hours, special programs, and scholarships.

Although Kedma is a public school, we vitally depend on financial contributions.

• Cutbacks in public education funding. Government funding provides for the modest operating costs of the school and only minimum teaching hours, and even these have been scaled back over recent years due to successive budget cuts. This means that the unique programs that embody the school’s pedagogical model (most notably the Mentoring Program and the Learning Center) must be financed through independent sources. Enrichment programs such as the Human Rights program, Arab-Jewish dialogue, or the expanded Jewish Studies program are also funded privately.
  
• Financial need of the school population. The Kedma School serves the poorest school population in Jerusalem among Jewish schools, rated ‘9’ on a 10-point scale of socioeconomic need (by comparison, the next-neediest school in Jerusalem has a socioeconomic rating of ‘5’). Most Israeli public high schools charge parents thousands of shekels a year in tuition and ‘special fees’ to maintain high quality programs in the face of budget cuts. By contrast, the Kedma School charges a nominal tuition of 500 shekels a year (about $100), and many families receive full or partial tuition to cover even this cost. Kedma also offers special scholarships for students who cannot afford basic school supplies and books, as well as for essential items such as shoes and clothing. Finally, the financial situation of our school population means that the school is the primary source of cultural enrichment for students (theater, concerts, museums, and other outings) -- again, programs which are necessarily funded by the school and outside sources. 
  
• Minimal operating costs. Kedma maintains the lowest possible operating costs, so that contributions will maximally go to our students. For example, the Friends Association runs without an office and maintains only one full-time employee (the director, who works from home). When additional help is necessary, employees are hired on a per-project basis in order to keep salary costs at a minimum.
  

For instructions on how to make a financial contribution to the school, please click here.

To learn about other ways of contributing to the school, please contact the school office or the Friends Association.

Are there Arab students who attend the school?
No, there are no Arab students, although there are Arab faculty members. The Israeli public education system has separate schools for Arab and Jewish students, where the language of instruction in Arab schools is Arabic and the language of instruction in Jewish schools is Hebrew.

What does the name ‘Kedma’ mean?
The word “Kedma” has two definitions in Hebrew, “Forward!” and “Eastern.” Thus, the choice of this word has a double-meaning for the school: To look ahead to a future of progress for our students and for the community, while also honoring the Eastern (Oriental) origins and heritage of the past.

If the Kedma School is such a success, why hasn’t the school expanded in size or opened other schools in different locations?
The size of the student body at the current school is limited by the classroom capacity of our building.

One of the major goals of the Kedma Friends Association is to found additional schools based on the Kedma model, and the Association is now in contact with a number of school districts to this end. However, there are a number of challenges that stand in the way of this goal, which will be explored at the upcoming June 2005 conference on “Critical Pedagogy: The Kedma Model.” Some of these challenges include:

• Local economic constraints. Israeli municipalities are financially struggling, and find it cheaper to turn education over to chains such as ORT and Amal than to operate their own municipal schools, including a municipal school such as Kedma.
  
  Chains like ORT and Amal receive their funding from the Ministry of Education, student tuition, and other sources, and therefore they reduce the financial burden on the municipality considerably. By contrast, a municipal school -- whether in the form of an academic high school such as Kedma or even a comprehensive school -- must be funded by the municipality’s own budget. Therefore, the option of turning high school education over to an outside chain is an attractive choice, particularly in poor areas.
  
  However, it is important to note that overall Kedma is still less expensive than traditional vocational education, which costs about three times as much as the academic education provided by Kedma. This is unfortunate considering that the vast majority of vocational students (98%, according to a recent Adva report) do not end up practicing the vocation they have studied.

• Lack of consistent support by the Ministry of Education. During Yossi Sarid’s term as Israeli Minister of Education, when the ministry aggressively pursued the agenda of narrowing socioeconomic gaps in educational achievement, the ministry proposed using the Kedma model as the basis for opening new high schools in poor and disadvantaged areas in Israel. A report by the Ministry’s Secretary of Pedagogy, dated January 2000, stated that “among the few schools which have held up the banner for narrowing gaps, and succeeded in doing so, are the Kedma School in Jerusalem and the Zanziman School in Dimona -- these should embody the model for systematic change.” Unfortunately, this plan was not pursued when Sarid’s term ended in 2000.
  
  
• Ideological resistance. By its nature, the Kedma model is critical of the existing public education system and challenges current thinking about how public education should be run. Also, some figures view the Kedma Model as divisive or overly political, and feel that it threatens the more popular trend toward integration in public education.

Is there any connection between the Kedma School and other groups I know called “Kedma”?
The Kedma School is not affiliated with the schools “Kedma – Kiryat Malachi” or “Kedma – Tel Aviv” which closed in the mid-1990s, nor with the “Kedma Dormitory School” for special education which is currently active in Kiryat Malachi, nor with any other student or educational groups in Israel and North American that use the name “Kedma.” Nor is the Kedma School affiliated with the Mizrahi-Israeli portal “kedma.co.il” run by Dr. Sami Shalom Chetrit.

However, the Kedma School is historically related to the Kedma schools in Tel Aviv and Kiryat Malachi, as these three schools were founded by colleagues who shared a similar vision for alternative public education in Israel.

Why is the school sometimes called “Kedma-Jerusalem” and sometimes just “Kedma”?
The differentiation is made for historical reasons, to distinguish the Kedma School in Jerusalem from two other schools called “Kedma” in Tel Aviv and Kiryat Malachi. The Kedma School in Jerusalem is not affiliated with Kedma-Tel Aviv or Kedma-Kiryat Malachi, which closed in the mid-1990s, although the founders of the three schools were colleagues who shared a similar vision for alternative public education in Israel.

What happens to students after they graduate from Kedma? Do you have any statistics about the achievements of alumni in college and beyond?
Since Kedma was founded as a ‘growing school’ in 1994, our first class of graduates are only now finishing their compulsory military service and starting to apply to college. Therefore we cannot yet provide statistics on their college or career achievements. However, from our personal contacts with graduates, we know that they are well on their way to fulfilling their dreams. Many have finished their military service with distinction, and are now returning to Kedma to consult with former teachers and mentors on choosing a college, how to apply for grants and scholarships, and which professional direction to take. We are also happy to learn that many former students have applied (and been accepted) to competitive college tracks such as medicine, law, and computer science. To read about the experiences of students following graduation from Kedma, click here to read interviews with students.

Why don’t you have more complete statistics about the achievement rates of Israeli students on the bagrut?
Bagrut statistics are compiled by the Ministry of Education and are organized by localities of over 10,000 residents. Therefore, there are no statistics available for specific schools or neighborhoods. One of the reasons that more specific bagrut statistics are not provided by the authorities is that this may lead to unhealthy competition between school districts.

Click here to view a comparative chart of bagrut scores at Kedma and various Israeli school districts.

What are "academic," "vocational," and "comprehensive" schools?
In the structure of the Israeli school system, children are tracked into high schools that are academic, vocational, or comprehensive (the latter combines both academic and vocational tracks). Academic high schools prepare students to complete a full bagrut (high school matriculation) certificate necessary to go on to college, and are concentrated in affluent areas that are largely populated by Ashkenazi (European and North American) Jews. Such schools may pre-select their students based on entrance examinations and elementary school achievement, and often charge costly tuition and fees.

Vocational and comprehensive schools are concentrated in poor and peripheral areas, and are attended mostly by children from less advantaged communities -- such as Mizrahi (Oriental) Jews and new immigrants. While these schools are more accessible to local students, they do not prepare most students to complete a full bagrut. Therefore graduates of these schools leave with fewer options for continuing to higher education or finding meaningful work as adults.

What is the 'bagrut'?
The bagrut is the high school matriculation certificate awarded in the Israeli education system. To attain a bagrut certificate, students must complete their high school education and take a series of exams on the courses they have studied. The exams are determined by the Ministry of Education and students take them in grades 10 – 12.

The bagrut differs from a regular high school diploma because it reflects both students' grades in the subjects they have taken in high school, and their test scores on the national bagrut exams in those subjects. Attaining a full bagrut certificate is necessary to enroll in higher education in Israel. The bagrut is also a tool used by employers, the Israeli army, and other institutions to rate prospective candidates, such that students who finish high school without a bagrut certificate face limited life chances as adults.

The quality of a student's bagrut certificate reflects various factors, such as: how many course hours the student has taken in particular subjects, the level of difficulty of the subjects, and the number and difficulty of the exams for those subjects. (For example, students can take a basic 'level 1' exam in a particular subject, or a full 'level 5' exam, depending on how well they have mastered that subject.) Students who wish to enroll in competitive university tracks such as medicine or law must attain the highest-quality bagrut to be accepted.

In development towns and poor neighborhoods, students are typically tracked into vocational or comprehensive schools that do not offer students the coursework and preparation necessary to achieve a full bagrut certificate. While some students at these schools may attain a partial or even a full bagrut, their proportion is much lower than at academic high schools. Further, the quality of the bagrut certificate for many of these students is not sufficient to enable acceptance to college.

Why does Kedma focus so much on the issue of the ‘Mizrahim’ (Oriental Jews) in Israel? Aren’t other groups, such as Ethiopian or Soviet immigrants, Arabs, and the poor, just as needy?
The Kedma School was founded to address the particular inequities faced by Mizrahi communities in Israel, while recognizing the shared vision of equal education for all Israel’s citizens, regardless of nationality, ethnicity, socioeconomic background, or geographical place of residence. While most of the student population served by the school are of Mizrahi background, there also students who are from Ashkenazi families and from new immigrant families from Ethiopia and the former Soviet Union. Almost all of our students come from communities that struggle with economic hardship, cultural marginalization, or discrimination, and the school strives to fully and equally meet the needs of all its students.

Who are ‘Mizrahim’?
In Israeli society, the word “Mizrahim” is used as a general term to designate Jews of Asian and North African heritage, and who came to Israel from such countries as Morocco, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Libya, Egypt, Kurdistan, and many others. While the Jewish communities in each of these countries shared their own rich and distinct heritage, the word “Mizrahi” (or “Oriental”) is used somewhat as a catchall phrase to refer to any Jewish population from these areas. The corollary to the word “Mizrahi” is “Ashkenazi,” which designates Jews from Europe and North America.

Most Mizrahim came to Israel in the 1950s and ‘60s, and were settled in development areas in Israel’s periphery or in poor neighborhoods in the center of the country. The encounter between Mizrahim and the established Ashkenazi population was a painful one. Policies which addressed Mizrahim as ‘primitive,’ ‘backwards,’ and fit only for manual labor, left enduring educational and socioeconomic gaps which persist even today. The Israeli establishment also discouraged expressions of Mizrahi culture (in music, traditions, Arabic language, and other forms), which it perceived as inferior, so that the Mizrahim could become ‘modernized’ into the Israeli melting pot. Even currently, Israeli textbooks make very little reference to the history and heritage of Jews from Middle Eastern countries. For example, in the book "History of the Nation of Israel in Recent Generations" by Dr. Shimshon Kirschenbaum, only 9 out of 400 pages relate to Jews of the East. In "A Brief History of Israel" by Dr. Shlomo Horowitz, the ratio is 6 out of 630 pages.

Today, Mizrahim comprise about half the population of the country. Despite the overall increase in the educational and living standards in Israel over the past 50 years, disparities between Ashkenazim and Mizrahim persist in almost all areas of life: education, salary, profession, place of residence, cultural acceptance, and more. With respect to place of residence, most of the residents of distressed neighborhoods and development towns continue to be of Mizrahi background, whereas most residents of well-off neighborhoods and towns continue to be of Ashkenazi background. In terms of salary, a study by Yinon Cohen shows that between 1975 and 1995, the salary gap between Ashkenazim and Mizrahim grew from 21% to 31%.¹ In education, the gap has only narrowed slightly: In 1975, the percentage of Mizrahim holding an academic degree was 6% as opposed to 25% for Ashkenazim; in 1995, the rate was 10% as opposed to 37%. Another pioneering study by Yaakov Nahon showed that the economic and cultural gap widened, rather than narrowed, among the second generation of Ashkenazim and Mizrahim.²

Since the 1980s, a new political Mizrahi discourse has developed in Israel, which is primarily based in social-political ideology rather than ethnicity. Shlomo Swirksy and Dvora Bronstein were among the pioneers in presenting a critical, sociological analysis of Israeli society in general and with respect to relations between Mizrahim and Ashkenazim in particular. Proponents of this 'new Mizrahi discourse' include academics, students, artists, authors, journalists, and organizations, who over the past two decades have shaped an alternative movement for achieving a more pluralistic and just Israeli society. Some of the prominent examples of these are: Hila (the Israeli Committee for Equality Education), the Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow, Achoti ('Sistah' – for Women in Israel), and the Kedma School. Thus, the groups that are working most actively in Israeli society on issues of multiculturalism, educational equality, welfare, civil rights, social justice, and community empowerment are made up largely of Mizrahi activists.

References
¹ Cohen, Yinon. 1998. “Socioeconomic Gaps among Jews, 1975-1995.” Israeli Sociology, 1, pp. 115-134. (Hebrew).
² Nahon, Yaakov. 1987. "Patterns of expansion of education and the structure of employment opportunities: The ethnic dimension." Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies. (Hebrew).