Should the U.S. withdraw from UNESCO and ban IB in U.S. public schools? (bias, election)
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Seems to me Finn_Jabar is one of the few in this discussion with actual experience in the IB system. IMHO this makes him well qualified to speak on the topic.
For someone who said this in their opening post ...
You certainly don't follow your own rules.
I think I have heard it all here:
IB is communist
IB is fascist
IB is elitist-snob
IB is political indoctrination
IB is like Hitler Jugend
IB is a cult
IB is inferior compared to average high school
IB promotes socialism
IB is tyranny
IB teaches kids to respect TERRORISTS
IB is not recogized by US universities
IB does not educate kids, it teaches ONLY respect (which is political indoctrination)
Alinskyite is name calling? It's someone who follows Saul Alinsky. Unless you regard following Alinsky as a bad thing???? It's sorta like getting offended by calling a Shia Muslim a Shiite.
If ObserverNY posts have been void of name calling and dripping with maturity, then I'm the true author of Rules for Radicals.
Seems to me Finn_Jabar is one of the few in this discussion with actual experience in the IB system. IMHO this makes him well qualified to speak on the topic.
FWIW - I get the finn jabar reference.
Finn attended a private IB high school in a foreign country. He/she has not shared with us when he/she graduated from said school.
The issue at hand is IB in American public schools. Finn's "experience" with IB is irrelevant to the taxpayer and Constitutional issues at hand, in particular the payment of U.S. taxdollars to a Swiss organization which is an NGO of UNESCO.
I have no issue with private American institutions of learning purchasing the IB product.
I just think it's outrageous to pay for a non-mandated expense like IB when we already carry a wonderful AP program here in the USA. It's redundant and we can't afford to pay for redundancy. In our school, there are about 450 students to a graduating class. This year a whole 60 students signed up to take one or more of our IB courses. We added more this year, it's been around for about 3 years now.
The Super for Curriculum had to justify this expensive program again this year because people like myself were underscoring the small number of students attending the program. So they recruited more. Not much more. Then the super went about the task of lying about the numbers. She counted seats, not heads. By the time she was finished
she took the 60 students who are taking one or more of the IB courses and counted them like a head for as many courses as they took. So if one kid took 6 IB courses that kid was counted 6 times, instead of one kid taking 6 courses.
She cooked the numbers to justify her stupid IB programme. Now that is downright evil!
You really think that respect is the only thing they teach at IB? Really?
I know for a fact that it's their prioritized goal. It specifically states such in the FIRST SENTENCE of their mission statement. Is it the only thing they teach? No. Is it their main goal? Yes.
I prefer academic rigor to be the main goal. AP has that. IB doesn't.
I just think it's outrageous to pay for a non-mandated expense like IB when we already carry a wonderful AP program here in the USA. It's redundant and we can't afford to pay for redundancy. In our school, there are about 450 students to a graduating class. This year a whole 60 students signed up to take one or more of our IB courses. We added more this year, it's been around for about 3 years now.
The Super for Curriculum had to justify this expensive program again this year because people like myself were underscoring the small number of students attending the program. So they recruited more. Not much more. Then the super went about the task of lying about the numbers. She counted seats, not heads. By the time she was finished
she took the 60 students who are taking one or more of the IB courses and counted them like a head for as many courses as they took. So if one kid took 6 IB courses that kid was counted 6 times, instead of one kid taking 6 courses.
She cooked the numbers to justify her stupid IB programme. Now that is downright evil!
Yes, they do the same thing in my district. I have stopped aggravating myself by attending Board of Education meetings, but I'll do you one better than the mere seat counting rhetoric.
The IB Coordinator was making a presentation to the BoE on IB exams one year when I happened to be sitting in the audience. Ours is a very small HS, with approximately 160 students in any graduating class. Well, the IBC reported that some 535 IB exams had been administered that year. Doing some quick math on the Board agenda sheet, I determined that it was absolutely physically impossible to have had that many students sit for exams. So I questioned it. Ya ready for the answer?
The IBC told me that the each IB subject exam really counted as TWO exams because the students had to sit IB papers on TWO separate days!
Ohhhh, no, no, no they do NOT count as TWO exams, Mr. IBC! Of course the school wanted to count them as TWO exams per IB subject because that would boost the school's index on Jay Mathews' Challenge Index/Best High Schools List. When I pointed this out, the BoE President said,
"Yeah? Well tell that to my daughter who sat through those rigorous exams!"
And, since I happen to have regular e-mail correspondence with Jay Mathews (and also appear in his book Supertest; How the International Baccalaureate Can Strengthen Our Schools, chapter 45), Locust Valley didn't get away with its fraudulent attempt to skew the rankings.
Apparently you missed where I said that they started high-school level classes in middle school.
Some states don't allow high school classes taken in middle school to count towards high school graduation requirements UNLESS students actually take the classes AT the high school, or they ARE the same classes taught in high school and the class is taught by a teacher from the high school. ...Illinois, for example.
Quote:
English classes that gave high school credit began in 7th grade, and science/math classes with high school credit began in 6th.
Again, Illinois does not permit that. The exception so far has been high school Geometry taught to middle school 8th graders, but ONLY if a high school teacher comes over to the middle school to teach it, and the syllabus, graded homework, quizzes, tests, etc., are EXACTLY the same as the actual high school class.
Illinois law, effective beginning in 2009:
Quote:
(105 ILCS 5/27-22.10)
Sec. 27-22.10. Course credit for high school diploma.
(a) Notwithstanding any other provision of this Code, the school board of a school district that maintains any of grades 9 through 12 is authorized to adopt a policy under which a student enrolled in grade 7 or 8 who is enrolled in the unit school district or would be enrolled in the high school district upon completion of elementary school, whichever is applicable, may enroll in a course required under Section 27-22 of this Code, provided that the course is offered by the high school that the student would attend, and (i) the student participates in the course at the location of the high school, and the elementary student's enrollment in the course would not prevent a high school student from being able to enroll, or (ii) the student participates in the course where the student attends school as long as the course is taught by a high school teachercertified in accordance with Article 21 of this Codewho teaches in a high school of the school district where the student will attend when in high school and no high school students are enrolled in the course.
The only thing I can think of, and I hate saying it, is jealousy.
Why would anyone be jealous of a program demonstrably proven to be inferior to AP?
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