Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To add to the above, someone could probably write a book about how IB turned the school’s fortunes around in about 10 years. A complete 180.

Don’t be silly. What mostly helped Marshall was residential development in Falls Church and Vienna spurred by Tysons jobs growth. If IB turned a school around, schools like Annandale, Mount Vernon, and Lewis would have improved, too.

Marshall may have benefited slightly from being an IB school surrounded by AP schools. For a number of years when it had more pupil placement Marshall had the 7th highest SAT scores in FCPS behind TJ, Langley, McLean, Oakton, Woodson, and Madison. When it stopped accepting as many pupil placements, it got overtaken by Chantilly and, at times, other schools.

Jay Matthews, Washington Post, wrote a book about IB and what happened when it was implemented in an FCPS HS. https://www.amazon.com/Supertest-International-Baccalaureate-Strengthen-Schools/dp/081269600X

Quote : rigorous IB program works especially well in "problem" public schools, many of which have witnessed truly remarkable results following their adoption of the IB.

Supertest interweaves the story of one American school that adopted the IB — Mount Vernon High School — with the story of the IB itself, how it was conceived, created, and developed.

FCPS IB now https://annandalehs.fcps.edu/node/4663

A high school turnaround story is always inspiring, even if Marshall’s was driven in part by rising real estate values in and around Tysons Corner and Vienna. IB at FCPS schools like Mt Vernon and Marshall was also touted as an “exclusive” program for highly motivated students and upper middle class families (then largely white) were drawn back to these schools to some degree.

One famous book about a high school turnaround is The World We Created at Hamilton High. It tracks the rise and fall and then rise of a high school in an upper middle class area, that dealt with violence, poverty and racial issues in the 70s and 80s.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1059029.The_World_We_Created_at_Hamilton_High