Reply to If AP is more popular/better/more flexible, why does FCPS put IB in all the lower-ranked schools?

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Reply to "If AP is more popular/better/more flexible, why does FCPS put IB in all the lower-ranked schools?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]9:04 -- thanks for adding to the details.  Taking a 2 yr. class would definitely be a detriment and taking all the tests at the end of senior year (instead of doing some earlier) would also be a negative for the student.

I'm not really that concerned about the cost difference when it comes to making a decision for my kids.  I have an opinion about the costs as it applies to the whole school system, but that part doesn't matter when we're looking at schools/houses and trying to decide if IB should be avoided.

I doubt that your hope of scrubbing IB is going to happen since I believe they are pushing the IB middle years program in MSs that feed into the IB HSs.

I think they should put the most popular programs into the least popular HSs.  Seems like the low-performing HS have a lot of kids who are ESOL or FARMS and they might not have the verbal skills to succeed in a program like IB -- but maybe they would have a shot at succeeding in an AP class.  Seems kind of backwards. [/quote]

It is mainly about political activism and power.  The "popular" schools have the most active parent base and will not allow for an unpopular program to be placed in their school.  The IB plan worked for Marshall.  I think it worked because there was a minority population in the surrounding "popular" AP schools (McLean, Langley, Madison) that wanted the IB program and were willing to transfer to Marshall to do it and there is an under performing HS (Falls Church) where parents would prefer to send their children to IB to get to go to a higher performing school.   It has not worked in other areas of the county because some of the IB programs are clustered together and they do not have the same number of AP schools swapping students. Plus, when the instituted it, I think they thought the IB program would be more popular than it proved to be.

I think one of the reasons that the IB program has not worked as well as the AP programs is that there is definite preference for STEM leaning students to choose AP over IB and we have a very high population of STEM leaning students. [/quote]

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