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Schools and Education General Discussion
AP vs. IB?
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Anonymous
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NP here.
Have to agree that when someone refuses to be your trained monkey, it doesn't mean the lack of intelligence is on their end. KWIM? |
Anonymous
| Disagree -- the manipulation would seem to be on your side. You don't have any answers, so you attack the poster instead. |
Anonymous
| Good lord, now it's "provocative" to raise questions about your pet curriculum? Welcome to the end of democracy.... |
Anonymous
| Meh. If you walk in the door with a negative attitude, you can't be surprised when people don't want to play with you. |
Anonymous
| When did the high schoolers start posting here? |
Anonymous
IB is the high end of outsourced academics while edison schools is lower end. IB has huge costs and most students are not diploma candidates. Most take standard level courses. Being a diploma candidate might be useful for college admissions but the diploma occurs long after senior year admissions cycle is over. IB is an easy way for smaller schools and districts to plan curriculum and get teacher training. It also can jump start a really bad school or provide a school within a school environment - a program for those who would otherwise place out from undesirable schools in large districts. FCPS has lots of IB high schools and some middle schools. Boundary changes are really ugly for these sites despite the higher expenditure on IB than AP. Overall Fairfax County parents prefer AP while IB has been a bust as a program of choice. Woodson dumped IB. look at Vienna area. Nice homes and Madison AP and Marshall IB. |
Anonymous
Vienna does have good options. More families in Fairfax do prefer AP to IB, but Marshall is surrounded by AP schools, and the net transfers into Marshall from Langley, Madison, McLean and (in particular) Falls Church exceed the transfers out of Marshall to the AP schools. As a result, even though Marshall is small, the enrollment is growing and no one clamors for a redistricting. The situation at South Lakes was different, where the decision to send students from Westfield, Oakton and and Madison to South Lakes generated a lot of hostility - particularly because the Langley boundaries were left untouched. |
Anonymous
| Thanks for these views. Do you have any sense of why VA parents are making these choices in AP vs. IB? |
Anonymous
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W&L has IB and AP. (Arlington)
My sense is that the more motivated in our area do IB. |
Anonymous
Yes: 1. Perception is that students can get more college credits from taking AP exams than IB exams. 2. Lots of high-tech workers in Fairfax, and upper-level AP math/science courses are viewed as more challenging than their IB counterparts. 3. IB has a bit of a stigma in Fairfax because most of the IB programs were placed in schools with higher percentages of lower-income students and lower test scores. Of the eight Fairfax high schools with IB programs, only two (Marshall and Robinson) are among the higher performing high schools in the county. If the first IB program in the county had been at Langley or McLean rather than at Mount Vernon, IB would probably have more cache in Fairfax. |
Anonymous
| Interesting. Especially because it points to a failure to distinguish between IB classes (no big deal - sort of like AP) and IB DIPLOMA - (in some cases the equivalent to already having earned an state university diploma). |
Anonymous
PP here - you can add #4 4. With limited exceptions, small number of actual IB diploma candidates at Fairfax high schools with IB programs. |
Anonymous
If IB classes are sort of like AP, then what distinguishes the IB diploma? Is IB more than the sum of its parts, for example does the special research project set it apart? |
Anonymous
| I'd be interested in learning an explanation for the IB hexagon, if anybody is willing to do this without using the words "negative" or "dense" and otherwise refusing to answer the question. How do the IB classes inter-connect? |
Anonymous
Students can elect to seek the IB diploma by successfully completing the following requirements: One course in each of the six different subject areas with a minimum total score of 24 (out of 45) on the six assessments, TOK, and the extended essay Theory of Knowledge course Participation in the CAS (Creativity, Action, and Service) program An extended essay in an area of interest to the student http://www.fcps.edu/DIS/gt/IBDiploma.html |