I.B. Program Under Review at George Mason H.S.

By Darien Bates

For years, the International Baccalaureate program at George Mason High School has influenced the way many area high schools think about their advanced educational programs. Now, as the school goes into its 25th year, some parents are asking whether the internationally regulated program is really the best choice for the Falls Church school system and its students.

In the November 23, 2005 edition of the Falls Church Education Foundation’s newsletter Foundation Footings, City resident Peter Behr reported that the Falls Church School System has hired educational consultant David Roylance, a former Fairfax County IB coordinator, to conduct a review of the IB program.

Although the review has been underway since the end of last school year, many in the City were unaware that the study was being conducted. Donna Englander, executive director of the non-profit Education Foundation, said that she only found out about it recently, and asked Behr, former business editor for the Washington Post, to do a short article to bring awareness to the community.

Falls Church School Superintendent Lois Berlin told the News-Press that the study wasn’t necessarily in response to any specific concerns about the program, but was something that, after 25 years of its existence at George Mason High School, needed a fresh review. Though the IB program, internationally, has its own form of self evaluations every two years, no comprehensive evaluation of the program has been done by the school, itself.

But there has been talk about the efficacy of the IB program among some parents, according to PTSA chairman Ron Peppe. The debate has been about whether, after 25 years, the IB program is still serving the Falls Church schools most effectively, or whether the school needs to look into making changes to its advanced courses.

Many of the questions are about the preference of IB over the Advanced Placement (AP) program, consisting of a series of courses instituted by the College Board.

George Mason High cut its AP program when it adopted IB in 1981, and has since added only an AP calculus course for students who needed the class for their college applications, as the IB program doesn’t offer specific classes in calculus. Instead, the IB program has a general category for mathematics, which includes calculus as one element in its overall curriculum.

Peppe said parents have raised several concerns about the IB program.

Some have argued that by emphasizing the IB program so heavily, less attention is paid to the other classes including college preparatory (CP) courses, which are still considered to be advanced level. Two thirds of the students at George Mason High School take at least one IB course, leaving those not involved in IB a minority of the population, and according to some parents, overlooked.

But IB also has shown a potential for increasing the overall quality of classes, not just IB courses. Jay Mathews, Washington Post education writer whose recent book Supertest focused on IB, told the News-Press in an interview last week, that the program has, in some cases, elevated the academics of entire schools. He used as an example Mount Vernon High School in Fairfax County. The IB program helped reinvigorate an economically diverse school that had been underachieving academically.

Other parental concerns have been that the rigorousness of the IB program severely limits students’ abilities to participate in other activities and classes, normally considered part of the high school experience. This is particularly the case for students working towards their IB diploma. The way the diploma requirements fit into the school day mean that in their senior year, diploma candidates’ schedules consist entirely of IB courses.

Students in Fairfax County schools have echoed some of the sentiments about the program's rigors. In recent interviews with IB students from George Marshall High School, who also participate in the school’s stellar theater program, many of the students acknowledged the pressure from IB courses. They said that they often had to stay up late at night to keep up with the work load and still participate in the drama program.

One of biggest concerns, though, is the acceptability of IB among college admission boards. While AP has long been accepted by most colleges and universities, IB, still a relatively recent trend, is less well known. A web search of several colleges’ admissions policies, large and small, revealed that while all of the colleges were willing to grant credit for IB courses, the information was less defined than that for the AP courses.

In an interview by phone, John Blackburn, dean of admissions for the University of Virginia, said that with the rise of IB’s popularity in Virginia, the university has established practices for granting its credits.

He pointed out that since the school only gives credit for higher level IB courses, while it gives credit for all AP courses in which a high enough test score was earned, it isn’t always a perfect comparison.

“A top-level IB student probably doesn’t get as much credit to their degree as a comparable AP student,” Blackburn said.

But he said that few students graduate early no matter how many credits they come in with. More recently, he said, there is concern among some that the amount of credits students are bringing in from high school is altering the traditional liberal arts education at the school, as more students are skipping the core classes and focusing on specific subject areas earlier.

In tracking the performance of both IB and AP students, Blackburn said that both groups do equally well in their classes at the university.

The larger question goes to the kind of learning Falls Church feels its students should be having. Mathews said that the difference between the AP and IB programs is one of educational philosophies.

The AP program, he said, focuses more on memorization and fact learning, while the IB program emphasizes an analytical approach to learning.

Recently, George Mason has changed the focus of the review from targeting the IB program to a general curriculum study. Berlin said the idea is to look at not just individual programs but how they work together.

But until that report comes out, expected in early January, Berlin said she is hesitant to say anything about what action the report might invoke from the schools.