Their Grades, Our Responsibility
Amid a day of relentless headlines, one story stood out – and struck a nerve: the dismal state of Israeli students’ literacy, as revealed by the latest PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) test results. Israel ranked 43rd out of the 91 participating countries and economies and 33rd among the 38 OECD member states.
I doubt there is anyone in Israel who is not troubled by these findings. Everything that needs to be said about the state of our education system, the decades of neglect of our human capital, and the need for sweeping reform has already been said. There is little left to add. More importantly, saying it again will accomplish little. We can continue to lay all the blame on the system, the institutions, and the politicians. But sometimes we need to stop expecting others to do the work for us.
After all, these are our children’s grades. And that makes them our responsibility, too.
Perhaps we need to restate the obvious: Parents bear primary responsibility for their children’s education. It is their responsibility to raise children of good character, capable of distinguishing right from wrong and choosing what is right. Above all, parents are responsible for helping their children grow into independent, thinking individuals – happy and healthy in mind, body, and spirit.
Not the caregiver, the kindergarten teacher, the classroom teacher, the principal, and certainly not the sprawling behemoth known as the Ministry of Education. Of course, most of us cannot teach our children mathematics, English, or physics at the required level, nor are we expected to replace the school. But reading, writing, language, and curiosity are more than school subjects. They are part of our responsibility as parents and of the broader culture in which we raise our children.
If Israeli children rank so poorly in literacy among OECD countries, it is hard to argue that the education system alone is to blame. This is also a wider cultural problem, one that begins in our homes. The Jewish people, after all, are known as the “People of the Book.” The Jewish tradition of excellence in reading and scholarship did not arise from the quality of any formal education system. It grew out of a pervasive culture of learning, interpretation, curiosity, and intellectual inquiry – a culture nurtured in the home, the community, and the broader cultural environment.
Even today, in the age of artificial intelligence, reading remains fundamental to thought. We think in words and concepts. Our imagination draws on images, stories, and the richness of language. The ability to read a complex text, grasp an idea, identify an argument, and distinguish the essential from the incidental is integral to our capacity to think for ourselves. A world of screens can never fully replace reading, storytelling, and imagination.
The problem is enormous, but some of the remedies are remarkably simple. Get a public library card. Read the same book as your children and discuss it with them. Keep books within easy reach at home. Let your children see you reading for pleasure – on weekends, on Shabbat, and before bedtime. Set aside an occasional family reading hour: no screens, no chores, just everyone sitting together with something to read. (A sports magazine counts, too.)
The PISA results are a wake-up call for the education system. But they are also a wake-up call for us – the parents of the children of the “People of the Book.” That title is not an honorific we inherited. It is a cultural commitment that must be renewed in every generation, in every home.
The truly troubling question is not where Israel will rank on the next PISA test. It is what kind of people we will have raised by then.
