Washington-Lee: IB/AP question (Arlington, Annandale: crime, credit, houses)

[sc_alum]

Hi All -

Question I'm having a hard time finding the answer to, so hopefully someone here knows:

Washington-Lee HS has the IB program, whereas Yorktown has AP. I gather that Yorktown kids can attend the IB program at WL. But does that mean that WL doesn't offer AP, period?

We're looking at buying a lot in the W-L area, but I'm not terribly enamored with IB and would much rather my kids be able to take AP classes. If W-L is IB, does that mean no AP there, and if so - do they grant transfers (i.e. to Yorktown) based on that?

Thanks for the insight!

[JD984]

W-L is an IB, not an AP, school. Both Yorktown and Wakefield are AP schools.

Yorktown was not accepting out-of-boundary transfers for the current year:

Arlington Public Schools | School Options (http://www.apsva.us/154010811517240/blank/browse.asp?a=383&BMDRN=2000&BCOB=0&c=54241 - broken link)

Instead, it appears that students in the W-L district wishing to take AP courses were given the option of transferring to Wakefield HS:

Arlington Public Schools | School Options (http://www.apsva.us/154010811517240/blank/browse.asp?a=383&BMDRN=2000&BCOB=0&c=54238 - broken link)

Someone more familiar with Arlington might be able to tell you whether that will change in the future. Yorktown is currently being renovated, so perhaps it will be open to transfers again when the renovations are finished and there is more room.

I understand some folks prefer AP programs to IB programs for valid reasons. My understanding, however, is that students in the full IB program generally do end up writing far more college-level essays than students taking AP courses. In addition, W-L was recently renovated, and there seems to be a lot of positive buzz in the W-L neighborhoods about the quality of the local schools.

[ObserverNY]

Dear SC_Alum,

Despite IBO's claims to the contrary, IB and AP are competing companies. (IBO vs. The College Board). The CB is American, IBO is based in Geneva, Switzerland and is an NGO of UNESCO.

If you have a choice of where to purchase a home at this point, I would advise buying in the neighborhood zoned for AP. Unfortunately, this may change in the future, as districts tend to use IB for "social justice" to try and equalize the free and reduced lunch rate in schools.

Furthermore, AP is college-level, while IB is college-preparatory. Most universities in the U.S. do not recognize IB SL exams for college-credit. Please check HERE for everything you need to know about IB but were afraid to ask.

[JD984]

Originally Posted by ObserverNY

Dear SC_Alum,

Despite IBO's claims to the contrary, IB and AP are competing companies. (IBO vs. The College Board). The CB is American, IBO is based in Geneva, Switzerland and is an NGO of UNESCO.

If you have a choice of where to purchase a home at this point, I would advise buying in the neighborhood zoned for AP. Unfortunately, this may change in the future, as districts tend to use IB for "social justice" to try and equalize the free and reduced lunch rate in schools.

Furthermore, AP is college-level, while IB is college-preparatory. Most universities in the U.S. do not recognize IB SL exams for college-credit. Please check HERE for everything you need to know about IB but were afraid to ask.

ObserverNY appears to be a single-issue poster who roams the forums looking for opportunities to criticize IB programs.

I don't get the impression, however, that he or she knows anything about the NoVa schools. If they did, they wouldn't imply that Arlington would redistrict to send more kids from Yorktown (an AP school) to W-L (an IB school), which is the fastest-growing high school in Arlington and has the most students. If anything, Arlington may end up redistricting students from W-L to Yorktown or Wakefield (which is also an AP school) in a few years. In Fairfax County, the School Board has recently redistricted to reduce the number of students attending an IB school (Annandale) and increase the number of students attending an AP school (Falls Church) with declining enrollment.

I'm also not sure why the PP assumes that high-school students necessarily should be pushed to take "college-level" courses. It's good that kids are challenged, but sometimes pre-AP and AP courses take it a bit far. For example, in NoVa, works by Ibsen are regularly taught in sophomore pre-AP English classes. Are 15-year-olds really equipped to understand that type of material, or are they just learning to regurgitate what a teacher has suggested will earn points on a College Board test? Does that encourage critical thinking skills, or is it the high-school equivalent of a beauty pageant for four-year-olds?

[ObserverNY]

JEB77 is correct that I have only posted in these fora regarding IB. Is that a crime? I was unaware that the First Amendment had been revoked in the United States.

However, JEB77 is incorrect that I have no knowledge of NoVa schools. In fact, I have researched Fairfax County schools quite extensively, have met with and corresponded with Jay Mathews of the Washington Post and Newsweek for over 5 years, and am featured in Chapter 45 of his book Supertest.

A good source for information about Fairfax County Schools is FAIRFAX CAPS. I would like to point out their IB/AP Comparison and their very good presentation. IB has caused controversy in Fairfax and some people have sold their homes and moved in order to be in an AP school.

Additional information from FAIRFAX CAPS can be found HERE. You may also note that the website Truth About IB is listed as a reference HERE. I also have a page dedicated to Fairfax County HERE.

Assuming PP means "previous poster", nowhere did I suggest that students should be "pushed" to take college level courses. In fact, I advocate pre-requisites and a certain GPA to be eligible for such courses, rather than the popular "open-enrollment" policy adopted by most American public schools.

[JD984]

Originally Posted by ObserverNY

JEB77 is correct that I have only posted in these fora regarding IB. Is that a crime? I was unaware that the First Amendment had been revoked in the United States.

No crime - though others may take the views of someone who is on a personal crusade with a grain of salt.

As I said, I think each program has strengths that may appeal to different students and their families. For example, if I wanted my child to graduate from college in three years, I would prefer AP since colleges remain more likely to award college credits for AP exam results (although the university that I attended declined to extend any credit for a top score on the AP exam in certain subjects). If you're suggesting, however, that the anti-IB bias is so strong in this area that, for purely economic reasons, no one should buy a house in an IB district, you're on shaky ground in NoVa.

As I already mentioned, the Washington-Lee (IB) school district in Central Arlington is growing faster than the neighboring Yorktown and Wakefield (AP) school districts. In Fairfax, the high school with the most transfers out of the school is an AP school (Hayfield), and the high school with the most transfers into the school is an IB school (Edison).

As to the CAPS materials that accompanied the South Lakes redistricting in 2008, there were a lot of warnings from the stridently anti-IB crowd that none of the redistricted students would attend South Lakes, everyone affected would sell their houses and move to higher ground, and so forth. In fact, the enrollment at South Lakes has increased substantially, and the number of transfers to other schools, while still high, is now declining as families become more familiar with the new school pyramids.

[ObserverNY]

SC_alum stated that they weren't "terribly enamored with IB". As I have demonstrated and you confirmed, there is a "strident anti-IB crowd" in Fairfax. I don't know that I would "tout" an increased enrollment at South Lakes as a selling point as the school is ranked 20th out of the 25 in the district, while the top 7 HSs are all AP.

[JD984]

It's as if we now have our very own Reverend Fred Phelps fresh from Wichita here to help us out with our schools...

In any event, I know what the OP wrote; I actually tried to give him factual information - not conspiracy theories - to help him if he wants to make sure he's in an AP district in Arlington.

Not sure what your "rankings" purport to reflect. Based on SAT scores, two IB schools (Marshall and Robinson) have regularly been in the top third in Fairfax County in recent years (##6-7 last year, excluding TJ, and higher in Marshall's case the prior year), per the Schoolranks site. The local HS "rankings" in Fairfax are correlated with the wealth of the communities from which the schools draw, not whether the schools have an IB or AP program. The same is true in Arlington County, Virginia and Montgomery County, Maryland.

[ObserverNY]

Based on SAT scores? Oh really. I am unfamiliar with the "Schoolranks" site. Link please.

You see, I rely on hard data, not IB conspiracy theories.

[finecognac]

I've got to redistrict myself out of Falls Church City. It has the devil IB