Paragraphs like this one catch my attention:
To earn an I.B. diploma, students must prove written and spoken proficiency in a second language, write a 4,000-word college-level research paper, complete a real-world service project and pass rigorous oral and written subject exams. Courses offer an international perspective, so even a lesson on the American Revolution will interweave sources from Britain and France with views from the Founding Fathers. “We try to build something we call international mindedness,” says Jeffrey Beard, director general of the International Baccalaureate Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. “These are students who can grasp issues across national borders. They have an understanding of nuances and complexity and a balanced approach to problem solving.” Despite stringent certification requirements, I.B. schools are growing in the U.S.–from about 350 in 2000 to 682 today. The U.S. Department of Education has a pilot effort to bring the program to more low-income students.
The idea doesn’t sound bad, if you’re convinced the people putting the program together aren’t selling an anti-American screed. Based on the discussion in TIME‘s new cover story on education innovation, I’m not sure.
More disturbing was this passage:
The juniors in Bill Stroud’s class are riveted by a documentary called Loose Change unspooling on a small TV screen at the Baccalaureate School for Global Education, in urban Astoria, N.Y. The film uses 9/11 footage and interviews with building engineers and Twin Towers survivors to make an oddly compelling if paranoid case that interior explosions unrelated to the impact of the airplanes brought down the World Trade Center on that fateful day. Afterward, the students–an ethnic mix of New Yorkers with their own 9/11 memories–dive into a discussion about the elusive nature of truth.
Better N.Y. than N.C.
