Failed Initiative for Autonomous Secular Public Education in Israel

• In Event: Education's Autonomy: Perspectives on Locality

Abstract

This presentation aims at introducing a recent unsuccessful initiative in Israel that calls for an autonomous secular public education, analyzing it in light of literature on education’s autonomy, raising and discussing philosophical questions about it, and offering insights about its emergence and failure.

The initiative in Israel was led by prominent educational scholars (but not of education’s autonomy per se) and by educational activists, and called for an autonomous secular public education, mostly in response to what the initiators considered undemocratic decisions and actions by the Israeli government and the Ministry of Education’s efforts to impose Orthodox Judaism and ultra-nationalism on students. Major goals of the initiative were to enshrine in law schools’ right to pedagogical autonomy and the establishment of an independent education council.

The initiative seems to fail – no major developments have occurred in the last three years, and its organizing body ceased to communicate with interested members. Despite its failure – and actually because of it - this initiative is interesting for education’s autonomy advocates, including philosophers of education. Although it was formed independently of any academic or scholarly work on education’s autonomy, during its inaugural convention in 2019 the leaders of the initiative spoke in terms that resemble the language used by scholars who advocate for education’s autonomy: notions that suggest boundaries for education (or “in” and “out,” “us” and “them”), protecting against the political and ideological instrumentalization of education, and values that are and are not educational. This correspondence suggests that there is potential and significance for cooperation or even collaboration between scholars of education’s autonomy and leaders and activists ‘in the field’, a partnership that was lacking in the Israeli case. However, the benefit of such partnership, if any, and its desired features are unclear; one model for such joint work is offered by Michael Apple, with his notion of critical scholar/activist and his service as a “critical secretary.” Relatedly, the Israeli initiative – and especially its failure – raises the question whether an initiative for autonomous governance of schooling requires a theoretical foundation in order to better construct coherent and sound claims to present to the public and in different relevant forums. Another question is whether initiatives for changes in the system level of education (such as forming an independent national council) are preferred within - and as such should ‘wait’ for - a larger social change. In this regard, it might be worth for proponents of education’s autonomy to consult a theory of social transformation and consider how ruptural, interstitial, and symbiotic strategies (working along and with the state) might be useful to realize it.

My presentation will address these and other questions, including whether, and if so how, learning from such an initiative in a particular political-social context can be valuable for other contexts. I argue that such examination has the potential not only to benefit conceptualization of education’s autonomy, but ultimately also to provide theoretical and conceptual support to actual attempts to gain more autonomy for educators and for the educational system as a whole.

Author

• Doron Yosef-Hassidim, Lakehead University
  Presenting Author