Truth About IB (TAIB) represents the most comprehensive compilation of investigative research on the International Baccalaureate® (IB) program available on the Internet. The purpose of this site is to provide factual information and resources to parents and taxpayers who have unanswered questions about IB. If you are unable to locate the answers to your questions, please feel free to e-mail us at: info@truthaboutib2.com
Let's be clear. No amount of tutoring, make-up classes or extra help will make International Baccalaureate (IB) courses "appropriate" for many children with special needs. IB is proudly billed as "rigorous". The definition of "rigorous" is; extremely thorough, exhaustive and/or accurate. For a child who suffers from dyslexia, blindness, neurological disorders, even ADHD, there is absolutely no reason to subject them to the kind of stress and mental strain that IB places on even non-LD students.
Furthermore, public schools in NY forcing students to take IB History in 11th and 12th Grades are not meeting the NYS Graduation requirements for High School. These requirements include a .5 year of Economics and a .5 year of Participation in Government. These are foundational courses which students with disabilities could handle, but it appears they are being denied the opportunity which is mandated by NYS.
Another BoE Meeting will be held on 12/5/18. If you are in a position to help the good parents in RVC who oppose the IB mandate for special education students, please attend and speak up.
The LI Herald article was brought to the attention of Jay Mathews of The Washington Post and author of Supertest; How the International Baccalaureate Can Strengthen Our Schools. Once corroborated, Mr. Mathews stated,
"It makes no sense to force IB, even one course, on a student that doesn't want it .... And if they do try and force kids to take IB in violation of their IEP's, that would be a column." ~Jay Mathews
Oldest IB High School on Long Island, Rockville Centre, NY
The 2018 IB/AP Exam Reports for Locust Valley High School are presented in the box to the right of this text. You will note there are a number of redacted lines. The district claims it is legal for them to redact numbers of 5 or less because we might somehow, magically, be able to identify students. It should be noted that the minimum class size policy is 8, so if LVHS is running classes with fewer than 8 students, it is violating its own policy.
It should also be noted that a complaint has been filed with whistleblowing@ibo.org against LVCSD for its unauthorized use of the IB PYP and MYP. More to follow when this situation is addressed.
If this is your first visit to Truth About IB, a few words. My apologies for not actively reviewing and updating links within this site over the past year. Unfortunately, IBO completely redesigned its site, burying, obscuring, deleting and making it virtually impossible to provide helpful links for those seeking information on fees, regulations, past speeches, etc. Other info may be a couple of years out of date. If you have specific questions that you are unable to find the answers to, please email me at info@truthaboutib2.com. I still check the e-mail and will reply as soon as possible.
In terms of the site itself, I am leaving it up online as a resource for newcomers to explore, but will not be adding new articles. With the advent of Common Core in the U.S., most folks understand that IB is merely Common Core on steroids. On occasion, I will check and update the number of IB programs in the U.S. It does my heart good to know that despite the millions of taxpayer dollars wasted on IB, there are still fewer than 900 Diploma programs in the U.S.
This e-mail, received from an IB student in Michigan, should be a wake-up call for any administrator who claims they are implementing IB "for the children". Educators who are truly "for the children" shouldn't want to stress them out to the point they consider suicide.
To: info@truthaboutib.com Date: 10-07-2015 11:58 PM Hello, my name is Mathew, and I am currently a senior at the International Academy of Macomb (IAM) in Michigan. I just saw your website and thought I could give you my personal experience from the IB programme and the misery it has brought me. Once introduced to the DP program as a junior, I had chosen considerably very difficult courses. This includes HL Math, HL Physics, HL English, SL Spanish, SLS Music, and SL History (20th century Europe and Middle East). Contrary to what one might assume about my choices, I had absolutely no problems with Math, Physics, Music, and History. To be honest, the content portion of the IB programme (excluding the political bias) is well within my capabilities. Math and science are my strongest subject despite the difficulty. History and Music are my favorite subjects. However, this is probably the only things I find satisfactory about the programme. Let me begin with the teachers and their methods of teaching. They would assign you a reading from a packet or IB textbook and expect you to educate yourself from that. There would be no lecture, no activities, nothing. History, once my favorite subject in public middle school, is almost unbearable because of the workload and the teachers' failure to actually teach his/her class. The only ones that do teach are math and science teachers. Some of them do their job very well, and I acclaim them for my abilities in the respective subjects. It is all of the other teachers that cause me to struggle. For that, I am a B or C student overall. The problem with the technicality of IB is their leniency of qualifying teachers for their curriculum. All they have to do is receive training for a single weekend. Some teachers at my school don't even have degrees in the subject that they teach, yet IB still considers them qualified just for attending "training". As for the curriculum itself, there can be many improvements. Personally, I am content with Math and Science. There are plenty of options and levels in which a student can choose from, and most IB schools provide these options. My problem is with the other subjects. There isn't even a curriculum for IB Music. All they have is a list of what students should be prepared for come the IB exam and the requirements for Internal and External Assessments. This makes it difficult not only for the student, but for the teacher as well. My music teacher does his job very well, but he has to stay up late at night aside from concert, jazz, and marching band at a nearby high school. He is one of the only teachers that does more work than the actual students, and I applaud him for that. Literature is another course that I am dissatisfied with. The reading my teachers assigns me are books, plays, and/or poems that are not traditionally read in high school, let along college. For example, In the past 6 months we have read novels titled Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, and Woman at Point Zero. Most students in secondary or higher education would not even know these titles, and even if they have, I doubt they would consider it literature. The plots are bland, the style and literary elements are poor, and the theme is way too subjective. This makes the course difficult to get a good grade. It is because of this class that my GPA is suffering and am most likely not going to be accepted into my preferred university (University of Michigan). Finally, the history curriculum is the most flawed of all. The textbooks and the presentation of the content is clearly biased towards the left wing of the political spectrum. For example, when learning about Soviet Russia and the rise of Stalin, it was said that Stalin's version of Communism was dissimilar, even opposite, to Marx's and Lenin's traditional theories. They are able to glorify an extremist ideology like Communism using false interpretations of Stalin's rule. This is only a small topic in the large curriculum. I would assume different topics such as The Americas or World History would attack classical liberalism or even Christianity. My personal experience with IB has been the most stressful and toughest moments in my life. There had been so many times I had though of returning to my old public school district and take AP (even then I'll probably get more college credits). I have even went as far to consider suicide. I have heard that many actually have committed suicide as a result of the stress IB gives its students. The fact that someone would think or even do that because of the programme itself clearly demonstrates the horrid nature of IB. Although I am a senior and am very close to completing high school, I am serious on leaving and going back to my home school. My grades are the worst they have ever been, and I am discouraged about doing my homework due to the amount I receive each day. There needs to be more awareness of IB and the serious flaws within it. I support what you are doing and am glad more and more people are understanding the true nature of the programme because of you guys. Sincerely, Mathew XXXXXX
"Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body & mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day."
It is difficult to track when districts eliminate IB. Some districts are still in the discussion phase, some made application but never followed through. But for the purposes of this section, TAIB will try and keep pace with the number of drops which receive local press. Since March, 2009, IBO has lost 51 IBDP schools, 60 MYP and 31 PYP or a total of 142 fewer IB schools in the U.S.A. If anyone is aware of districts not listed during this period, please e-mailTAIB with the stats. Thanks!
Based on a 3 year tracking period, TAIB can confidently state that for every four new IB schools in the U.S., one already authorized IB school is booting IB to the curb.
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