Reply to IB Program- What is it? IB or AP?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

[quote] IB is a negative for the lower ranked SES schools. Few students pursue an IB diploma and students have an automatic out, assuming they can arrange for transportation, to attend a higher ranked AP school. I don't have it available now, but I've seen historical data on the number of transfers from Lee to West Springfield, Annandale to Woodson, and Mount Vernon to West Potomac. There were a lot of pupil placements.

IB is a plus for Marshall, because it's surrounded by AP schools. So, even though IB is less popular than AP, one IB school surrounded by four AP schools will benefit from pupil placements. To some extent, that's happening at South Lakes now, too. Unfortunately, it's not the model throughout the county, so the schools that get screwed are the IB schools close to one another. Both Mount Vernon and Stuart, IB schools, are on a watch list of schools at risk of losing state accreditation.

FCPS doesn't like to admit that it may have made a mistake, or ever take away a program that it's introduced somewhere. If we are in cost-cutting times, however, the sensible thing for FCPS to do is look at both the higher costs associated with IB (coordinators, teacher training, IBO fees, etc.) and the IB and AP participation rates for lower SES students at different county schools. Unless they can conclude that, somehow, the majority of the students at schools like Lee, Annandale, etc. are getting a benefit from IB, they ought to get rid of it. AP works well elsewhere, and reintroducing AP at schools like Lee might stem the flow of out-bound pupil placements.[/quote]

Keeping IB schools in central parts of the county, like the Annandale area, would make them accessible to anyone in the county that really wanted IB for their kids while preventing the county from losing their entire IB investment (trained teachers, etc). But otherwise,[b] IB should be scaled way back to save money.[/quote][/b]

I like IB and my kids are at an IB school where the program is very popular.  I would, however, be open to thinking about other alternatives at schools where it is undersubscribed.

That said, I would make this contingent upon getting rid of AAP Centers in many areas.  That is a financial drain as well and the necessity of busing kids to find a "critical mass of their intellectual peers," in McLean, Vienna and Great Falls to name a few places, is ridiculous.   To people who argue that it is only the cost of buses, I disagree.  An outsized portion of all the extra funds and parental support goes to these schools to the detriment of everyone else.

And unlike IB schools,  many in FCPS, including the school board members already  agree that FCPS has made a mistake with the hyper-expansion of the AAP program.  [/quote]

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