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This article from StarTribune.com
has been sent to you by Craig Brooks. *Please note, the sender's identity has not been verified. The full article, with any associated images and links can be viewed here. Craig Brooks wrote these comments: With all the debate at WAPS on this topic, I thought this might be of interest. Craig Brooks |
| IB strikes a nerve as it catches on Norman Draper, Star Tribune Its supporters praise it as the kind of tough academic preparation college-bound students need. They say it has just the right dash of international flavoring to help students compete successfully in the 21st century. But to its detractors, it's a fuzzy, anti-American approach to education that resembles the Profile of Learning, the state-mandated program that was scrapped in 2003 after teachers and parents revolted against it. Many Minnesotans probably don't know what it is. But International Baccalaureate could someday be coming to your school. Once restricted to a handful of Minnesota schools, International Baccalaureate (IB) is catching on fast. Dozens of schools now either use the program's framework for teaching or are lining up to become IB schools. It's already in use in such Minnesota high schools as Southwest and Henry in Minneapolis, St. Louis Park, Grand Rapids, Central in St. Paul and Cooper in New Hope. Some middle and elementary schools are already using a different form of IB intended to improve learning for all students. Begun in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1968 as a way to provide a common teaching framework recognized worldwide, IB aims to add an international context to learning while motivating students to devise their own projects and activities. But its emphasis on a global context and self-motivated learning has struck a nerve. At scattered sites around the nation, parents have lobbied to have IB yanked. And they've occasionally succeeded. In Minnesota last month, resolutions opposing IB were approved by at least two congressional district Republican conventions, including the Sixth District, where state Sen. Michele Bachmann of Stillwater won the nod as the GOP candidate for Congress. Julie Quist, vice president of the conservative EdWatch advocacy group, said IB is "un-American." "It teaches global citizenship as a priority over American citizenship," Quist said. Plus, Quist said, too much of IB discards pure knowledge in favor of "activities, group projects, discovery learning that people didn't like in the Profile of Learning." IB also was a divisive issue last fall in the Minnetonka school board race. But its supporters say there's a good reason why IB is growing in popularity. "This brings back that artistry of teaching and learning," said Paula Palmer, IB coordinator for Minneapolis schools. "It's giving big ideas to chew on for an extended period of time ... not just jumping from one thing to the next." IB commands the support of Gov. Tim Pawlenty, as well as business leaders, who view it as a complement to the Advanced Placement (AP) program, which offers rigorous classes for high-achieving students. Defining un-American At Southwest High School in Minneapolis, teachers and students can't understand the charges that IB is both anti-American and unacademic. "I voted for Bush in 2000, and I have a poster of Ronald Reagan in my closet," said Greg Denysenko, history teacher in the school's IB program. "To say that this program is anti-American is absurd." "How do you define un-American?" said senior Chelsea Zimmerman, who will attend Barnard College in New York City next year. "Is it being aware that other countries exist? I just think that's preposterous." Fellow senior Helen Schroeder, who is headed for Northeastern University in Boston next fall, says the IB program taught her "how to think better." She, Zimmerman and senior Alex Clausen had just gotten out of Brian Meyer's IB history class where students noisily prepared for a debate on such topical subjects as the death penalty, sports stadiums and immigration. Schroeder noted a distinction between IB and AP. "To me, AP is such a quantitative class," she said. "Getting the facts, getting the dates. I think IB makes the conscious effort to go beyond the scholarship approach." Clausen, who will attend the University of Minnesota, Morris, chose the IB program because "it was the most rigorous program I could find." IB teachers at Southwest point to their syllabuses to rebut the claim that IB tends toward mushy, subjective musings rather than cold, hard learning. Michael Kennedy assigns his IB English class such classics as "Crime and Punishment,"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn " and "Hamlet."Students should expect a reading range of 40-100 pages a week," reads Denysenko's syllabus. A matter of money The state now spends $4.5 million yearly on IB and AP, with IB getting a quarter of that. Still, schools must pick up much of the tab. Champlin Park High School is applying to be an IB school and is budgeting $108,000 for the program. That includes sending 23 teachers, a counselor and two administrators for IB training at about $3,000 per person, a $5,000 application fee and from $34,000 to $37,000 for a part-time administrator. The price tag has deterred some districts -- Burnsville among them -- from going the IB route. At the elementary and middle school level, IB programs focus on a common theme to learning, let kids contribute their ideas, and expand all of that to include an international context. That approach means moving away from textbooks. "All student work is student-created, it's not mass-produced," said Teresa Ciccarelli, principal of St. Paul's Highland Park Elementary School, which became an IB school three years ago. In some ways, it does resemble the Profile of Learning, the state-ordered system that cost tens of millions of dollars, and got the heave-ho after teachers and parents complained that it was too much work and too blurry in its goals. But there are distinctions. For one thing, schools now have sets of fact-based state academic standards that must be mastered, IB program or not. Also, schools choose the IB program; the Profile of Learning was forced on schools. Here's how a fifth-grade IB class might look at the Civil War. "Instead of looking at all the battles and the people, we're saying that there are social, political and economic causes and effects of the Civil War," said Jane Stassen, South St. Paul schools director of curriculum and instruction. "And then you could take that and go to Africa, and look at a civil war there... There's a sort of global and personal understanding." Norman Draper 612-673-4547 |
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