Re: high school redistricting
Posted by:
quantum
()
Date: October 19, 2008 01:56PM
Bob - your thoughts are troubling to me. We all have an interest in making public schools work; and in fact, many places they do. It is unfortunate that we have a system of government that apportions school governance in such an expansive way. The schools in Fairfax would be much better if there were 12 or 13 school districts - all competing with each other as they do in the suburbs of Chicago, New York and Philly. Lots of good high schools abound there, as opposed to 6 or 7 out of 23 that really perform well here. In fact, the worst performing schools systems throughout the nation are the large ones; to an extent Fairfax and Montgomery are anomalies because they do reasonably well, but when compared to the performance of literally 40-50 school districts in the Chicago suburban area, for example, they don't do well at all. Of course, a large school system makes parents feel powerless, so if your point is that parents should recognize they are powerless in all events here and just move on, I could see it, although it is painful to come to grips with it and difficult for me to be so fatalistic. I think of my own school district back home in the Midwest - two high schools in the district - average income less than Reston (it was not New Trier by any means), a crummy 50 year old and small (but paid for) admin building near a football field, and yet with average ACT scores at almost 26 with virtually every single student taking them. Any real problem with the schools, if not satisfied by the principal or superintendent personally, could be brought before the school board with a phone call in advance. Teachers were non-union, but paid better than union shops in the big cities and they liked to teach there, especially since academics, rather than various forms of social programming, was foremost. They actually earned tenure after a period - limiting their grounds for firing - and to do so they had to earn a graduate degree (paid for) and demonstrate teaching excellence. You can bet they were responsive (if clearly not perfect). This reference aggravates many -- especially those in the education business here - but there are good public schools that work. No private school in my area could have prepared as well for the schools I attended. And I could say the same thing only about 6 or 7 schools in FCPS - the luck of the draw, so to speak, makes parents unhappy.
I don't understand the marketing message from the IB program as making "citizens of the world." The IB program has its roots in Europe, and particularly continental Europe, where it was developed to prepare students for the incredibly elite "grand ecoles". Graduates of the grand ecoles are not citizens of the world, but incredibly elite intellectuals, who unfortunately in my experience in global business terrifically distrust the romantic notion that people can prosper and get ahead irrespective of their academic credentials. I can't think of a group with a less egalitarian worldview, or one that supports ability tracking more stridently. Heck, I get accused here of being an elitist, but in my general dealings with this crew they perceive me as a crudely educated American. Now, the IB program is an excellent and rigorous program, but it is clearly not for everyone (in fact, it is an elite program, and that is why it attracts high performing students to schools of lesser reputation). And its principal benefit is not in making citizens of the world, but in creating highly trained liberal arts graduates. There is a place in the schools for these kinds of people, and think it great that FCPS fills the void, but it is a far cry from both the ethic and training that is ideally helpful for those of a technical bent at any number of this country's great land grant universities (Va Tech among them), which have managed collectively to combine a degree of intellectual rigor and practical curricula and application to make our university system the envy of the world, bar none. If I were marketing IB - I would call it for what it is - an elite, rigorous program that is helpful to some, but only some - of the population. And I don't see how conflating that notion with a citizen of the world theme helps - especially since to some it implies a weakness in America's bread and butter approach to education - a system that, despite continuing emotions of anti-Americanism, simply has no equal around the globe.
Please don't take this as a criticism of the IB program. For the right students, it is a great program. But it is not a one size fits all deal - far from it. And don't take this as a rehash of AP vs. IB - this is just in curious response to a rather strange marketing message, and one that I do not think is accurate.