1. 76 Kappan February 2014
For many children, school sim-
ply doesn’t work. Many under-
privileged children have found
that the 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. program
fails to educate and prepare
them for life. What if we cre-
ated after-school programs,
separate from schools, to help
these children learn? What if
children received close atten-
tion in a public after-school
program that worked on mo-
tivating students, increasing
their self-esteem, and making
the program age-appropriate?
And the location of the
program would be in their
own communities, so they felt
comfortable and happy study-
ing near home with folks like
them. The idea is that the site
would reduce dropouts by
providing education in an al-
ternative context, meeting the
needs of students who fail to
thrive in traditional education
settings (Sarason, 2003).
This is not just a hypothetical.
Such a Dropout Prevention Cen-
ter has existed for more than 20
years near Tel Aviv, Israel. Early
funding for the Dropout Preven-
tion Center, established in 1992,
consisted mostly of donations.
Now the Tel Aviv Department of
Education funds the center. Its
target population is students, ages
that the 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. program
fails to educate and prepare
them for life. What if we cre-
ated after-school programs,
separate from schools, to help
these children learn? What if
children received close atten-
tion in a public after-school
program that worked on mo-
tivating students, increasing
their self-esteem, and making
the program age-appropriate?
program would be in their
own communities, so they felt
comfortable and happy study-
ing near home with folks like
them. The idea is that the site
would reduce dropouts by
providing education in an al-
ternative context, meeting the
needs of students who fail to
thrive in traditional education
Israel Sela and Bruce S. CooperGlobal voices | Israel
Helping underprivileged children succeed
An after-school program encourages at-risk teens to stay in school by providing tutoring,
therapy, and enrichment.
ISRAEL SELA (sela98@hotmail.com)
is founder and executive director of the
Dropout Prevention Center, Tel Aviv,
Israel. BRUCE S. COOPER (bruce.
cooper@mac.com) is a professor of
education leadership at the Fordham
University, Graduate School of Educa-
tion, New York, N.Y.
fully complete the exams. In the
last 20 years, about 1,000 Hatikva
students graduated and completed
the Bagrut exams.
The center has become a sup-
portive home for students — a
nurturing, understanding place
where they feel welcome and
where their intellectual, cultural,
educational, emotional, social, and
vocational needs can be addressed
with sensitivity and professional-
ism. The program helps students
improve themselves by working
through a number of aspects in-
tended to improve their academic
and personal skills that include:
#1. One-on-one and small-
group tutoring.
Students receive preparation for
the Bagrut exams to ensure that
the number of high school gradu-
ates among the at-risk population
increases. Moreover, the center
offers reinforcement classes and
social activities to develop social
skills, improve self-image, and
self-value by creating a network of
mutual support. Children in the
program receive daily reinforce-
ment lessons in all the subjects:
math, physics, English, grammar,
etc. by trained teachers, with the
help of volunteers who work one-
on-one with students. Program
leaders monitor their progress
and cooperate with their schools
and teachers in an effort to propel
significant academic improvement
and strengthen their self-esteem.
#2. Junior high school-level
(ages 13-15) computer
classes in cooperation with
Tel Aviv University.
This program is intended to cre-
12 to 18 from underprivileged
families, and its goal is to help
those children develop and suc-
ceed in the mainstream. The cen-
ter works to involve the students
as it makes full use of those after-
noon hours, five days per week,
where youth tend to hang out and
get into trouble.
The dropout prevention pro-
gram works out of Beit Dani in
the Hatikva Quarter in southeast
Tel Aviv. It is the largest com-
munity center in the Middle East.
The hardscrabble surrounding
neighborhood is composed of im-
migrants from Arab and North
African countries, foreign work-
ers, and illegal immigrants from
Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan
Africa, and is predominated by
single-parent families. Nation-
ally, Israel has only a 3.4% high
school dropout rate, but it is
much higher around Beit Dani.
Before the center was established,
few pupils in this area had the
skills necessary to pass the Bagrut
exams, a prerequisite for higher
education in Israel. In 1992,
only five Hatikva pupils passes
the Bagrut; in 2013, before final
numbers were tallied, it appears
that 70 students would success-
The center has become
a supportive home for
students — a nurturing,
understanding place.
Israel Sela
Bruce S. Cooper

2. V95 N5 kappanmagazine.org 77
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ate an academic atmosphere to
support students who have shown
an interest in technology and to
provide enrichment for gifted and
talented students. The program
provides an academic-study atmo-
sphere in the neighborhood, using
selected students as role models
and promoting self-esteem and
motivation in students while al-
lowing them to fulfill their po-
tential.
#3. Homework assistance and
developing learning skills.
Students improve their aca-
demic capabilities as a result of
the tutoring they get on their
homework. In time, the students
become more independent learn-
ers. The assistance focuses on de-
veloping learning skills, such as
the ability to prioritize and plan,
meet deadlines, maximize learn-
ing from lectures, improve their
attention span, identify personal
deficiencies, and develop coping
strategies to overcome them. Di-
vided into groups, students prac-
tice participation in group dis-
cussions, comprehending texts,
memory exercise techniques,
reading, skimming and scanning,
vocabulary enrichment, speed
reading, test preparation, dealing
with test anxiety, writing papers,
research skills, group study, and
decision making in course selec-
tion.
#4. Counseling and therapy for
children and their parents.
As part of the psychological sup-
port the program offers, a psy-
chologist regularly meets with
the children and their families to
follow up on progress and prevent
possible problems in the chil-
dren’s home environment. Each
child receives individual psycho-
logical counseling. Difficult cases
are given special attention: The
psychologist visits the children’s
home and conducts therapy ses-
sions with the participation of
both the children and their par-
ents.
#5. Parent group meetings.
One of the center’s biggest chal-
lenges is involving parents in their
children’s academic and extracur-
ricular activities. Many parents
have come from distressed fami-
lies and troubling backgrounds
and don’t have the capabilities,
knowledge, skills, or even the will
or energy to be actively involved
in their children’s education.
Having parental support plays
an important part in the children’s
progress and level of motivation.
#6. Financial aid and awards
for success.
Children and at-risk youth spon-
sored by the program receive fi-
nancial aid to buy school supplies
— books, school bags, electronic
dictionaries, school uniforms,
and other basic needs. In addi-
tion, graduating students receive a
symbolic financial award in addi-
tion to a guaranteed full academic
scholarship
#7. Sponsorship for further and
higher education.
The program guides and helps
young adults who wish to pursue
academic studies. People between
ages 18 and 24 who are deemed
at-risk and have a high school
diploma and a desire to pursue
academic studies are provided
counseling, SAT courses, super-
vision, financial assistance, and
scholarships.
Other services
In many cases, students also
participate in additional social
and athletic activities, music, and
dance to build an identity and
avail themselves of the same op-
portunities that middle-class chil-
dren normally enjoy. These stu-
dents also often join other youth
and community service organiza-
tions, such as the Boy Scouts, Girl
Scouts, and service clubs to help
the elderly and the ill.
Each year, the center tracks
students’ progress to show exactly
what they are learning. Evalua-
tions show that students improve
their performance in math, lit-
erature, and the sciences by 20%
each year compared with their
grade upon entering the program.
Student attendance is high (80%).
Most program participants re-
port being very satisfied with the
program. During the summer,
the center operates as a special,
smaller workshop for students
who appear to be at-risk of drop-
ping out, giving them heavy doses
of tutoring.
Conclusion
The best indication of the
Dropout Prevention Center’s suc-
cess is that the Tel Aviv education
department has identified it as a
model program. In addition, in
2009 an independent evaluation
by ISEF— a nationwide founda-
tion dedicated to helping gifted
students from underprivileged
backgrounds — found that stu-
dents in the Dropout Prevention
Center made strong gains at their
schools. Most of the students im-
proved their grades, and many
of them improved their chance
of getting into and doing well in
college. Students’ self-esteem and
motivational levels also increased
as did their satisfaction with the
program.
Since education is key to having
an independent adulthood, Israel
has invested in a comprehensive
program that helps high-risk ado-
lescents improve their school per-
formance as well as build up their
social and personal skills. Other
nations could benefit from follow-
ing the same course. K
Reference
Sarason, S. (2003). The skeptical
visionary. Philadelphia, PA: Temple
University Press.
The center works to involve
the students as it makes
full use of those afternoon
hours, five days per week,
where youth tend to hang
out and get into trouble.