comments below are drawn from a longer email distributed by Prof. Yaacov Bergman to the faculty in Israel's universities

(תרגום לעברית)

Subject: Professor Tamir, an education minister should read a figure correctly

September 3, 2007

An open remark

Haaretz published yesterday an op-ed "Spin Loh Khinukhi" by Tel-Aviv University economist Dan Ben-David.

http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/899833

Ben-David's main argument in that op-ed, which he supports by a figure that is based on data, is that the unusual increase in the public education budget during the latter nineties was accompanied by a marked decrease in Israeli youth literacy. Ben-David then reasonably concludes that it is a waste to merely throw money at the Israeli defunct education system without trying to thoroughly reform it.

Minutes after Dan Ben-David was interviewed on Reshet Bet yesterday afternoon about his morning op-ed, Minister Tamir was allowed on the air to effectively accuse him of doing a sloppy analysis. Tamir's criticism was that the education budget was greatly increased only to compensate for a concurrent increase in the Israeli student population; not more. Thus, Tamir claimed, that increase should not have been expected to improve the quality of the Israeli education system.

Unfortunately, Tamir's accusation was totally misplaced. Ben-David's figure in his op-ed does not show the large increase in terms of the TOTAL education budget. Instead, it shows the large increase in public education expenditure PER STUDENT. This obviously invalidates Tamir's criticism of Ben-David's robust analysis, and leaves intact his criticism of Tamir's education policy of evading the long due major reform of the currently defunct Israeli education system.

- Yaacov.Bergman@huji.ac.il