Serious effort to remove IB from FCPS?
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Anonymous
Some Lewis (Lee at the time) parents tried some time ago to get the county to switch back to AP and they did manage to get some AP classes. But the county absolutely refused to budge on IB overall. And that is a school with much less IB success than Robinson. So unless you get a massive parent movement together to fight for AP, you are not likely to get the county to budge at Robinson (one of the more successful IB programs). |
Anonymous
Most parents aren’t savvy enough to understand the differences, and there’s the inertia of going with what is offered. The small percentage of parents that care the most, are involved, and take the initiative to change schools, overwhelmingly vote with their feet and switch from IB to AP schools. |
Anonymous
| Another Robinson IB parent here. My child will start the diploma next year, but I would have no issue with Robinson switching to AP today. My child would probably still end up with more than 10 IB/APs. Just keep IB for the rising seniors. |
Anonymous
How would they get more than 10 IB classes if the diploma programs is only 6? Did they already take some AP classes freshman’s sophomore? I’d be curious which ones. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
The IB diploma is way more than 6 classes. 6 exams, maybe (each over 3 days) but it’s 2 math courses just to get to the one exam, and is the same in many of the subjects. If you are an IB candidate you are generally taking 6 IB classes junior year, and 6 more senior year. |
Anonymous
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Robinson employee: I think most staff would be supportive of switching to AP, but the demand has to come from parents. Grading IAs is miserable (requires sub days), creating IB rubrics is a time suck, and creating a master schedule that supports so many different versions of any given course is a beast. Year 1, SL II, HL II…every year it’s a nightmare of one off classes.
I wish I knew how to get change going. |
Anonymous
I see, you count IB HL as two classes, but it’s only one exam, so for example IB math HL is two years of classes even if it’s the same as AP calculus BC, which is only one year of classes. So three HLs is 6 classes, plus 3 SLs, that’s a total of 9. Do you count ToK as the 10th? Can someone give an example of courses for a typical student in the IB diploma program? |
Anonymous
Don't you have software for making master schedules? |
Anonymous
3-4 HL classes vs 0-15 AP classes? Not exactly a good substitute. |
Anonymous
| AP is the better choice for more kids and if they are planning to redistrict it should be a no-brainer to convert the IB schools back to AP. More flexible, still better known to colleges, and less BS about creating “global citizens.” |
Anonymous
Here is Robinson's example path: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OOg0DlRcYdgafcpPBmzKwNBVfncWYUiv/view Freshman/Sophomore year is a typical mix of honors and regular classes, though a few IB sequences can be started early if a student is ahead in math or wants to do both Chemistry and Physics at the IB level. Junior year: IB English Literature 1 IB Foreign Language 1 IB History 1 IB Science 1 IB Math 1 IB Theory of Knowledge IB Elective or regular elective Senior year: IB English Lit 2 (SL or HL) IB Foreign language 2 (SL or HL) IB History of the Americas (HL) or IB Geography (SL) IB Science 2 (SL or HL) IB Math 2 (SL or HL) IB Elective year 2 (HL) or 1 year IB Elective (SL) You test after your year 2 HL or SL course, so no tests junior year (since those are generally year 1) for most and a LOT of 2-3 day exams senior year. You need 3 or 4 HL exams and 2 or 3 SL exams, with a certain number of points earned on all. Plus each of those year 2 classes requires a paper (with a certain minimum score), PLUS the whole program requires an "extended essay" (with a certain minimum score). It's a lot. The AP criteria to be an "AP scholar" is much less, which is why I think there is so much disappointment at the low number of IB diplomas awarded, but it's an apples and oranges comparison. To get the top AP award, you just need to pass 5 exams. You can self study for the easier courses, you can get a C in the class, blow off the final, and pass the exam, etc. In IB, you must pass the class, the test, and the paper to get "credit" for the diploma. |
Anonymous
This is from Marshall's website: https://marshallhs.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/media/inline-files/RecommendedSequenceofHonorsandIBCourses.pdf |
Anonymous
Is the IB elective art? I thought that was one of the 6 areas you need to choose. If you can only do 4 HLs, how does that compare to the AP path? Normally I’ve been told that in 11th and 12th you can take AP English Composition and AP English Literature then for math Calculus BC and Statistics so that’s already 4, just English and Math. For sciences you can take AP Chemistry in 11th and AP Physics C after calculus. For taking both IB chemistry and Physics, can it be done at HL level in both, and how early to start? It just seems the IB system is needlessly complicated, and in the end you can’t take as many advanced classes as AP. I’ve been told SL classes don’t count as advanced for college credit. Looked up the diploma program for AP, it’s just any three AP exams plus AP seminar and AP research. I’d be interested to know how colleges look at IB vs AP diploma programs, and if they are considered equivalent. |
Anonymous
The grading and assignment style is one of the reasons I dislike the IB program. It feels a lot like busywork and it is needlessly difficult. For math and sciences some of the assignments are even counterproductive, like writing a 4 pages of math essays, definitely busy work, and not relevant to how students are graded in college. At the end of the day the IB students don’t necessarily have a better understanding of the material than AP students. Taking AP Calculus BC after IB Math HL Analysis is not a good idea, too many missing topics and not enough depth. |