RM IB Coordinator?
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Anonymous
They would have a lot more money if they weren't a sanctuary county letting illegals and anchors live off our taxes and get free school and meals. |
Anonymous
It is not an all-star team. It is an all-star team of tiger parents that set their kids up this way and will make sure they are bussed anywhere in the county or will drive them as needed. Some very talented and gifted kids can not afford to do this or have parents that can put in the countless hours of paperwork, meetings, finding out deadlines, etc... to be awarded one of the lucky spots. And many of these kids can't handle it. They work 4+ hours of homework a night to handle it. If you are working more than 2 hours on HW in high school, you can't handle it. It is beyond you but you work with tutors, stay up for hours, and stay sleep-deprived to make tiger mom happy. No different than all the other lottery and sign-up spots in these specialized programs. I would say 80% of the language immersion programs have parents that just wanted out of their terrible home elementary school and put in a school/class with involved kids and parents. They are all parent-led. In Fairfax, teachers decide who makes the in-school G&T programs. No bussing, no parent involvement. The actual best get in. |
Anonymous
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So many generalizations and mis info.. Lets start with the fact that Fairfax does bus kids to GT centers and they do have parent nominations as well as the inclusion of private testing with is a huge boost to those who can afford it.
Language immersion..those decisions are made in kindergarten. How would they not be parent led? I don't imagine many 5 year old approach their parents saying they have read about Chinese immersion on the mcps website and would like to apply. |
Anonymous
Yes, I think that everybody understands that the RMIB is a test-in program with a cohort of smart, competitive, and hard-working students. So then your answer to the question, "If IB were offered to all students in MCPS, what would be the reason for maintaining a separate test-in IB program at RM?" is, "The students who are admitted to the program benefit from being around each other." But I'm not sure whether that's a sufficient reason for a public school system to maintain a program. |
Anonymous
Actually, as an RMIB parent, I can attest that it is open to the average student at RM as well. Yes, the student will be struggling and when graded on the curve with the rest of their peer group they might come out with a dismal GPA - but if that is the risk they are willing to assume, then RM will not stop them. Even within the RMIB program only a handful students graduate with a perfect GPA. RMIB is for the students who are the cream of the crop and even they find it extremely hard. So average RM kids shy away from RMIB, even when they can strive for the IB diploma at RM without testing in. |
Anonymous
| It also comes with lots of class restrictions and hoops to jump through. Some top students would rather plot their own course with APs |
Anonymous
It is interesting that people here keep bring up that only kids of tiger moms got into the magnet programs. I had one child who had been a good student in ES and MS, but started to hate school in 6 grade. DC went to a magnet program in HS and finally found his peers and enjoyed learning. You could understand how the magnet program helped kids like mine if you had one in your family. Students in magnet programs put up with the homework and long commute because it is their choice. A few elected to go back to home school during schedule conflict for EC. If you had HS kids, please try to push something that only you want them to do. No matter if you were tiger mom or wolf dad, in today's enviroment, you could not make their do anything they are not interested. |
Anonymous
IB is being offered in many MCPS HS but the students find the full diploma program hard and they do not do the complete program (a'la carte IB is popular), or when they do the full program they might not score well enough to qualify for the diploma. Any student in any MCPS school who gets the IB diploma has actually achieved something remarkable. 97% of the students in the RMIB program earn the full IB diploma. IB program is a better program than what is currently available to most students in the US, because it imparts a well rounded education, teaches students to critically analyze topics, is interdisciplinary, global in approach and students are taking the exam that other top students from around the world are taking and they are being graded outside of the US - so no grade inflation. 4 Thus the RMIB program and other IB programs in various MCPS schools should exist only because we should strive to keep raising our education standards instead of lowering it. There are bound to be academically superior and advanced students in any school system and we should encourage them and challenge them. Just like we educate other students to their abilities, similarly the advanced students should also be educated to their abilities. Grouping like ability students in the same classroom created more efficient and conducive environment in the classroom for the teacher to impart the curriculum. If IB was offered to every single MCPS students and they were forced to do the full IB diploma then there would be no reason to have a test in IB program. By the same token though - the entire magnet curriculum and requirements of Poolesville and Blair should be made available to the entire MCPS HS population and the same instruction, enrichment and acceleration should be followed for all the students. Furthermore, all MCPS students should be graded on the curve and be graded as stringently as all magnet students. Fair is fair. |
Anonymous
| I think that there's a meaningful difference between offering the IB program to all MCPS students and requiring the IB program of all MCPS students. Don't you? Just like MCPS offers AP classes to all MCPS students but does not require all MCPS students to take AP classes. |
Anonymous
Actually, I do agree. Everyone should lobby to get more funds to public schools so that IB can be offered to every student. IB remains more expensive than AP, because of the cost and time involved in getting the school accredited, the teachers trained and the other IB rubrics adhered to. The IB organization has many safeguards in place to ensure that strict quality control is adhered to in the school. |
Anonymous
You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink!! If your kid is doing poorly, it's not b/c lack of IB!! 
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Anonymous
Who said that anybody's kid is doing poorly? My own kid is doing fine. Notwithstanding how my kid is doing, it is a fact that there are lots of kids in MCPS (including mine) who do not have the option of doing IB. |
Anonymous
They should have the option, but there is also a good chance that if it's not for a magnet program (drawing able students from multiple schools), no school would have had enough students finishing the program, and in the end, no IB program to anyone. |
Anonymous
I don't understand. B-CC, Einstein, and Seneca Valley already have IB programs that are not magnet programs. So obviously it is possible to have non-magnet IB programs. |
Anonymous
+ 1. I had not thought of the IB magnet program as serving this purpose. It is true that they serve the needs of a sizeable number of students from MCPS schools and this allows the RMIB program to actually create a quality blue print for other MCPS schools to follow that want to bring IB in their school. My relative is an IB teacher in Seneca Valley HS. She laments the lack of enough students that want to do the full IB diploma program. Most of the times even smart kids who are used to MCPS easy A's do not have the confidence to compete internationally with other IB students. As I mentioned before that there is no MCPS grade inflation when your paper is being graded in Switzerland or England. Before we start offering IB to every high school maybe we should concentrate in bringing the IB to the elementary schools (called Primary Year Program - PYP) and middle schools (called Middle Year Program - MYP) - at the very least in the feeder schools of IB high schools. Having IB in your school does not preclude you from taking AP courses or exams. Since IB diploma exams only happen in 11th and 12th grade, most RMIB students also take AP courses in 9th and 10th grades. Being an IB student does not preclude you from taking AP exams. In 11th and 12th grade, these IB students just study for their IB exam and usually show up to take AP exams in the same subject (as their IB exam) without any prep. The reason is that the AP exam looks incredibly easy after the IB exam. |