IB stands for International Baccalaureate, an interesting, balanced, imaginative, and rigorous program that is being used successfully to attract minority students toward academic pursuits. Jay Mathews in the Washington Post has a
piece on how it is being used in Maryland. Here is a description from Schenectady, New York's IB
World School Site:
The International Baccalaureate (IB) Program is an internationally recognized course of study for highly motivated 11th and 12th grade students. Currently, the program is offered in over 800 secondary schools in nearly 100 countries. To earn the IB diploma, students must pass examinations in 6 subject areas, write an extended essay of some 4,000 words describing an independent research project, complete 150 hours of creative, action, and service activities (CAS), and take part in a critical thinking seminar called Theory of Knowledge. This rigorous, comprehensive curriculum offers an integrated approach to learning while exposing students to a diversity of viewpoints in hopes of fostering tolerance and intercultural understanding.
Should it come as a surprise that this curriculum has already met resistance from the wing-nuts who see this curriculum as inappropriate, nay, unpatriotic--especially for African-American students. From the Post:
Some say IB does not align with some of the college courses for which it, like the much larger Advanced Placement program, was designed to substitute. Others say it puts too much emphasis on international understanding. One Fairfax County parent went so far as to say IB "promotes socialism, disarmament, radical environmentalism and moral relativism while attempting to undermine Christian religious values and national sovereignty."
The IB school certainly doesn't resemble the MacSchools for African-Americans that the privatizers are dreaming of--IB has no uniforms (brown?), no Open Court direct instruction, no open embrace of self-subjugation in a pre-conceived and fruitless future. Unpatriotic, I guess.
