[JohnGalt]

Welcome to the New World Order education system, designed to produce citizens of the world, brought to you buy the folks who can "build a democracy anywhere."

[stainlessbanner]

"students who learn how to think globally"

'Nuff said

[laotzu]

I'm just terribly proud to think that possibly, if I'm lucky, some of my tax dollars go towards this "educators" salary.

Extortion, for a socialist cause, feels so very cozy.

[ClearCase_guy]

Anyone who has "learned how to learn" will quickly realize that property rights, individual liberty, and free-market capitalism are the ONLY ways to truly help humans have better lives.

These academic programs are being taught by people who have NOT "learned how to learn".

[hosepipe]

bump

[Republic If You Can Keep It]

On IB exams, she noted, high school students are scored on a scale of one to seven...

1= The US is a good country.

2= The US has many, many problems.

3= The US needs to learn a lot from France & other enlightened countries.

4= The US needs more socialism & big government.

5= The US needs a LOT more socialism & big government.

6= The US is a sad, hateful, oppressive place. Workers of the world, unite!

7= Close down Washington DC. Let the UN take over & govern us directly.

Extra Credit:.....Show why American culture & values are inferior to all others in the world. List at least ten reasons you are ashamed to be an American.

[billbears]

that all students who learn how to think globally

I'd say that's already well in the works. Considering we have so many in the Republican Party that are more concerned with enforcing UN resolutions than practically anything else

[Piquaboy]

Who would have thunk it? We can thank our Rat socialist for screwing up our school system. FUBAR!I certainly hope not.

[Gerasimov]

One more reason for us all to get our children out of government schools NOW

You don't have to be rich ... we're a single income family (not counting my wife's 10-15 hrs a week at a sub joint to give us some 'extra' money.) With three kids it's hard ... we don't have a lot to spend, and as I often remind my kids, their college fund is called "The G.I. Bill." But it's worth every sacrifice to keep them out of the clutches of government schools!

[BlackElk]

Well, at least they are indoctrinating in pacifism to satisfy the paleo-ostrich set.

[Pearls Before Swine]

Having high school age kids, I think the "best and brightest" are hard to indoctrinate. They resent it and like to reach their own conclusions. It could be my beneficent influence, but I don't think so.

Nevertheless, educational indoctrination is very bad, because it does influence the majority of the students, who then go on to vote and distort the field we all play on.

[kitkat]

***"After all, it is our students who will change the world, and we need to allow them to be the fine citizens of America and the world that they have the potential to be," she said. ***

Sounds good at first glance, doesn't it? Just like the German-American Bund literature before WWII which glorified Hitler. And people BELIEVED IT!

[metesky]

Reston, Va.'s Langston Hughes Middle School

What would one expect from a school named after an open Commy sympathizer and fellow traveler?

[Steely Tom]

My wife (PhD in physics, masters degrees in materials, computer science, and [soon] an MBA) grew up in China during the height of the cultural revolution. She got the full treatment: communist propaganda every single day, from kindergarten through graduate school.

She rejected it all. She learned about America by reading Readers' Digest, after teaching herself English. She came to America two weeks after the Tiennamen Square uprising.

Smart kids will not be swayed by the foolishness of socialism. It's the wannabees, what my high-school friends called "pseudo-intellectuals," that buy into the idea that "all of us are smarter than any of us," the collectivist myth.

(steely)

[banjo joe]

"that all students who learn how to think globally, how to make connections between subjects, and how to 'learn how to learn' will be better prepared to be IB diploma students when they get to 11th grade."

Used to be the objective for all students, except for that "think globally" crap. This is elitism disguised as "egalitarianism".

[Rummyfan]

Thanks for the post - I've got two kids in South Lakes, one of whom is in the IB program. Have to get in touch with Mrs Geiger and Hall.

[Elric@Melnibone]

When my (now) 15-year old son was starting high school in El Paso, he was accepted into the IB program as it was the only one of the magnet or "advanced" programs which suited his career goals. Within a few weeks of starting, we moved and, for good or ill, were unable to find another IB program within commuting range.

the IB program was originally devised for children of diplomats, so that they could prove that they had received a world-class education

World-class education, implying the equivalent of advanced placement courses, is the way it was presented to us and, based on the few weeks my son had in that program, it was certainly strenuous. But strenuous doesn't necessarily imply rigorous

Conceptually, I like the idea of a recognized curriculum where students from the US, Argentina, Zaire, where ever can all be judged on a common criteria. But indoctrination is not education (and I doubt it would have worked on my son).

that most U.S. colleges and universities award course credit to incoming freshmen only for high-level IB courses

It was stressed that many (not necessarily most) U.S. colleges would accept the IB courses for college credit. One or two were mentioned (University of Tulsa sticks in my mind but I may be mistaken) that would accept an IB graduate as a Sophomore instead of a Freshman. For those of us wondering how to pay for ever-more-expensive college educations, that was a powerful inducement.

and do 150 hours of extracurricular activities or community service during 11th and 12th grades

Although I am not a fan of requiring students to do "volunteer" work to graduate (if ever there was an oxymoron, this is it), for my son, this is a slam dunk. Between Scouts, church work, Red Cross, National Junior Honor Society and the Humane Society, he did more hours than that in the summer between 8th and 9th grades. (And got credit for all the hours among all the clubs required it. Talk about double dipping, two hours cleaning up after the animals in the Thanksgiving parade gave him two hours "credit" in each of 4 different organizations!)

[StayAt HomeMother]

On the notoriously liberal show "West Wing" last night, the Black mayor of DC pleaded for a pilot voucher program. After the President asked the Mayor, "When did you become a Republican?" the President's young Black male aide expounded on why he would have preferred to go to Gonzaga (an excellent private school) rather than to a DC public school. The President ended up signing the voucher bill.

---

Today at http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/tsowell.htm Thomas Sowell writes the following about IB:

"Parents with backbone

    Parents in Fairfax, Va., have got rid of one of the endless series of fad programs that distract American public schools from real education in real subjects. Like most fad programs, this one had a high-sounding name: The International Baccalaureate Curriculum.
    It also has a left-wing hidden agenda, as so many other fad programs do. One of the program's supporters gushed it teaches students "how to think globally" and "how to make us part of the world."
    One parent critical of the program put it quite differently. She said it "promotes socialism, disarmament, radical environmentalism and moral relativism, while attempting to undermine Christian religious values and national sovereignty."
    None of this is new. This kind of indoctrination has been going on for decades, and the kind of thinking behind it goes back 100 years, when education guru John Dewey began promoting the idea schools should be instruments of "social change."
    By substituting back-door indoctrination in place of education, John Dewey has done more damage than anyone without an army.
    What is new is some parents are finally waking up and fighting back. They refuse to be conned by pious rhetoric or pacified by bumper stickers that say things like "My child was student of the month at Jordan Middle School" or even intimidated by the standard line, "You are the only one who has complained."
    Education bureaucrats will use that line even if you are not even among the first 20 who have complained about some program or practice locally, or among the first 1,000 nationally. There may be court cases all across the country over some program or practice, and they will still tell you that you are the only one who has complained.
    While the parents in Fairfax have had the backbone to get this junk program thrown out of their school, largely because it displaced so much real education that their children would have trouble getting into quality colleges, the battle still rages in nearby Reston, Va., where the education bureaucrats are determined to create a generation of internationalists.
    "After all," a school spokesmen said, "it is our students who will change the world."
    It is truly staggering that the kinds of shallow, ill-educated and fad-ridden people running public schools should take it upon themselves to decide how the world needs changing. On the other hand, it has long been said fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
    A very different battle has been going on in the District of Columbia. Here the issue is whether any of the predominantly black students will be allowed to escape the failing and dangerous public schools by having vouchers to go elsewhere.
    The teachers unions say no — and the teachers unions are the 800-pound gorilla of the Democratic Party that they supply with money and with people to walk precincts on Election Day. Some Republicans are also afraid to get on the bad side of the teachers union, even if it means another whole generation of poor kids go down the drain for lack of decent education.
    Among parents who are not intimidated is a black woman named Virginia Walden-Ford. She has not only confronted members of Congress in hearings, her organization of parents has taken out ads in states represented by members of Congress who voted against vouchers.
    These ads point out that liberal politicians who send their own children to private schools are preventing black parents from having that same choice. These parents don't hesitate to compare liberals like Ted Kennedy to Southern segregationists of the past like George Wallace and Bull Connor, who tried to block the advancement of blacks.
    It would never occur to our more delicate Republicans to say such a thing. But their children are not at risk.
    It's long past time for more parents to show some backbone if their children are not to continue being used for classroom indoctrination or as pawns in the games of teachers unions."
    

[Piquaboy]

I cannot believe that any conservative would watch "Left
Wing".