IB is something I just found out about this year. International Baccalaureate. It's a way for schools to increase their academics. It's similar to AP, but has it's own exams. There is a debate at the Washington Post to be a debate going on about the pro's and cons of it. The challenge I have heard on IB is you need to take classes outside of the regular school year to complete it (hello summer school). Of course there is a Freshman at my daughter's school who is taking Calculus. And all Eighth Graders in the school districts in my area are supposed to be taking Algebra in 8th Grade. Of course if you can't pass Algebra, you become a drop out.

Here is a link to the excellent four part series the LA Times had on a LAUSD School investigating the drop out rate. I believe one of the problems a student had was not being able to pass Algebra. Or was that one of my students I met during my student teaching.

A sad comment my Master Teacher made on the movie Walkout, was LAUSD still has the same problems for Latino students (low results). He graduated a year before the events in Walkout happened. I would love to read a copy of the essay, a tale of two schools by Paula Crisostomo who is now works at Occidental College. The schools being compared were Palos Verdes and Garfield. And the latest walkout was about immigration and became less and less of a political statement as the days progressed with the last ones having some of the kids throwing gang signs which lost the original purpose.

Labels: Education