Posted on 05/28/2015 10:58:56 AM PDT by Olog-hai
It was an unlikely display of protesters: nuns cloaked in white, a black-clad priest clutching a golden scepter and dozens of Arab schoolchildren picketing outside the hulking headquarters of Israel’s Education Ministry. Their message, raised high on large banners: “Take your hands off our schools.”
Private Christian schools are among Israel’s highest ranked educational institutions, established by churches in the Holy Land hundreds of years ago—long before Israel’s own creation. But school administrators are accusing Israel of slashing their funding as a pressure tactic to get them join the Israeli public school system—a move they say would interfere with the schools’ Christian values and high academic achievements.
They are also complaining of discrimination, since as Israel moves to cut money to Christian schools it continues to fully fund large private school networks that cater to ultra-Orthodox Jews. […]
Under a longstanding arrangement, Christian schools and other private schools that manage their own affairs receive only partial government funding, with the remainder of their budgets covered by either donations or tuition. The government funds cover roughly three-quarters of private schools’ standard costs, but it has been cutting back on other supplementary funding. …
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
What a bunch of insipid crap.
Everybody is feeling the budget crunch in Israel. Try sending a kid to a Jewish school there too. Costs a lot.
AP = Associated Propaganda
The government is also limiting their ability to raise private funds, according to the article.
More like “abominable propaganda”. This screed is deliberately trying to put a wedge between Jews and Christians, barely masquerading as “news”.
Not credible.
35 years ago, we put our children in a Baptist church school. We were told at that time that if we ever received any taxpayer money, through vouchers or any other way because our children were in a private school, we’d be asked to remove our kids from the school. A policy I agreed with 100%.
The people running these Christian schools are lying?
It’s not unheard of. Especially those hooked on government programs.
So what is inaccurate? Are the Nuns agitators?
They might be pro-”Palestinian” agitators as well. Not impossible.
Well, if they become public schools, they’ll be even more hooked, won’t they?
It´also ´not impossible´ that the nuns are right, no?
It is not possible, no.
Funny how AP succeeded with you, isn’t it?
No kidding. So why do they not insist on becoming fully private?
Did AP invent the nuns and what they said? I´m glad you live in a world of such certainties, it must be fun.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3293124/posts
An an article from Christianity Today (LINK)
It was claimed that this was all caused by Israeli budget cuts impacting everybody. But explain to me how this makes sense:
Right now the parents whose 30,000 children are attending Catholic schools, pay A LOT for their education: tuition + fees + of course, they are taxpayers as well. Now the Israeli Ministry of Education wants to LIMIT the amount of fees they can charge to parents. You'd think that if they were concerned about "budget issues," they'd want the Christian schools to collect MORE fees from the parents, and use less tax money.
And then they offer as an alternative, that these should all become public schools --- which means Israeli taxpayers would be paying, not just some fraction of the cost, but 100% of the cost.
Obviously, this would cost the taxpayers/government a whole heckuva lot more.
It doesn't look like the solution to an Israeli budget problem to me. It looks like a state takeover agenda.
Things that make you go “hmmmmmm”.....
I’d say the claim that the Israeli government is prohibiting these schools from charging more in tuition needs independent verification. Does the AP article verify it? (I don’t know, I’ve decided to not read entire articles anymore, you know, to fit in around here.)
If both the AP and Christianity Today claim it is so, do we trust the claim? When is there enough evidence?
(Questions not just for you; for all)
--- which also reports, "... But last year, the Education Ministry also placed limits on how much tuition the schools could collect from parents."
Other interesting details there as well.
“These schools are all facing the same budget cuts that the Christian private schools are, said Amnon De Hartog, a lawyer representing one of 23 private schools — mostly Jewish religious schools — that are petitioning Israel’s Supreme Court against the recent budget cuts.”
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