COPY OF MY REMARKS ON AN IB WEB SITE:

 

 Texas Parent Questions With Boldness

April 1, 2010 - Congratulations to Mary McGarr for signing her name and boldly challenging the "powers that be" in Katy ISD to get answers to her excellent questions before moving forward with implementation of IB. TAIB is honored to be cited as a reference in Mary's post which follows THIS ARTICLE.

Mary McGarr wrote on Mar 31, 2010 7:13 PM:

" Parents desiring this IB programme need to do their homework.

Please ask these questions:

How much will a school outfitted to accommodate an IB program cost for each level that is planned? (This does not refer to building costs as those are separate--this is just the cost charged by the IB organization.)

What will the ongoing cost be for each following year at each level? Does that cost always increase or does it diminish over time?

What specific employees will be required at each level to accommodate the IB program? Include program administrators, foreign language teachers, etc.

How will the regular curriculum at Wolfe be penalized in order to accommodate the IB program?

What kind of training will teachers endure each year and at what cost in order to be qualified to teach in the IB school?

How many students will be reasonably expected to acquire the IB Diploma at the end of their high school career? (Lamar High School in Houston ISD has been open for 25 years and in that time there are only 601 IB programme graduates!)

Will most of the students who attend Wolfe be taking the full programme or just an IB class or two here and there? If there are not students enrolled in the full program in sufficient numbers, how will this fact affect the enrollment numbers when students are not going to be provided with transportation?

Since the cost elsewhere is $92 per course, what will be the cost per course to the student in KISD?

What are the benefits of an IB diploma? Which colleges prefer/accept the IB diploma over AP coursework?

Are AP courses more difficult than IB courses? Are they comparable? Why are they or why aren't they?

What is the difference between AP and IB?

What is the background of the administrators who are trying to bring this program to Katy ISD? Did they work with this program somewhere else? How successful was that program? How is that success determined?

Will serving two year transient oil company executives from foreign countries serve the Katy community taxpayers who get to remain here and pay for this program after the oil company executives have gone back to their native lands?

Why is it that foreigners are so supportive of this program?

Will there be an athletic program at Wolfe? If not, why not?

Will there still be a Gifted and Talented program at Wolfe? If not, why not?

Will there be a fine arts program at Wolfe? If not, why not?

What will happen with Special Education students who might want to attend Wolfe?

How will building such a high school affect the Katy ISD yearly budget (and this excludes paying off the millions required in the bond issue)? Will KISD be facing the same scenario as announced yesterday by Ft. Bend ISD where they are having to lay off administrators and teachers, decrease bus routes, and raise the number of students per bus because they've spent too much money and their taxpayers have had enough or today in LaMarque ISD where they are deleting 58 positions for the same reason?

What binding requirements are issued by the International Baccalaureate organization with regard to keeping/getting rid of this program if it is found to be unworthy of our students? Could there be separation costs involved? How much would those be?

If this curriculum/school is so desirable, why wouldn't the administration want to locate it in the middle of the school district where it would be much more accessible and much more likely to be attended since transportation is an issue?

Is the District planning to sell off some of the land at the Wolfe site if it is not needed for the high school? What if the high school is not built--will some of the land be sold then?

Why isn't a brand new, plain old, plain Jane elementary school an option for the Wolfe Elementary site?

You might want to start here in your quest for answers:
http://www.truthaboutib.com/ "