Truth About IB

TAIB wants readers of this site to know that for the past six years, we have been open to listening to the defenders of IB, both students and parents. We are searching for widespread evidence that an IB education doesn't produce communicationally challenged, radical environmentalist youth with ferverently left-wing/anti-American leanings. If you take a quick read through our Pro-IB Comments page, if you have any sense of common decency and manners, you will see that the vast majority of comments we have received are nasty, angry, filled with foul language and even death threats. Can anyone name another educational program (with the exception of those opposed to teaching Intelligent Design) where such utter hatred occurs? We can't.

This page is dedicated to an IB Mom, Michelle Rosson, who had gotten on TAIB's e-mail update list. (For new readers, TAIB sends out courtesy updates whenever we add a new article or page. If you are not on our update list and wish to be added, please send your e-mail address to: info@truthaboutib.com )

Anyway, Michelle was on our list and took exception to an update regarding an article about a local newspaper in MI which edited a letter from parents who withdrew their children from an IB PYP school. Most of TAIB's subscribers are opposed to IB, so Michelle's e-mail took TAIB a little off guard. TAIB replied to Michelle that she had been removed from the TAIB update e-mail list. This evoked outrage from Ms. Rosson. So, TAIB encouraged some of our other readers to reply to Ms. Rosson in our stead. To date, Ms. Rosson has not been forthcoming with a reply to Peyton Wolcott's Media Query. However, should Ms. Rosson decide to substantiate any of her claims about IB, TAIB and Peyton Wolcott are prepared to publish them immediately online. As stated elsewhere on this website, TAIB is not an advertisement for IB. If you want to read an advertisement for IB, please visit www.ibo.org.

The following e-mails begin with Ms. Rosson's:

Lisa,
I am continually concerned that your biased and slanted web site in which I first started reviewing under false pretenses "truth about IB" is completely and utterly out of control. You do not care about the truth, you care about negative propaganda that is far from the truth.

Did it ever once occur to you to stop your terror and over blown fears and really look at a broader view? Have you once sat down with college admissions officers and discussed IB's rigor and breadth of learning which is truly being recognized over memorization? You pit AP and IB against each other, but just this weekend I spoke with a very prominent admissions counselor who explained that the difference between AP and IB should be viewed on horizontal and vertical planes......AP is horizontal, there is material taught at a higher level than standard high school curriculum, there is memorization of facts and figures and there is the test to prove success. AP has been around over 30 years and much of the content and testing is the same as 30 years ago. IB is vertical and drives down deeper into subjects and supports the subjects with Extended Essays, Projects, TOK discussion and debate and then test. She clearly said the rigor and time management skills acquired with students taking the IB route prepared them for the shock, freedom and rigor of their first year at University.

This website is not TRUTH, it is a biased, scare tactic aversion to change. It is people and organizations like yours that are causing our children to continually fall down and behind in the ranks of education.

There is a great big world out there and if you think for one minute that "TRUE AMERICANS" do not have to live, work, succeed or fail in it, you are delusional.

I do not fault AP, at all. As a matter of fact, if sadly, it is the most rigorous program a school has to offer, then AP is it. But, to push your fears, political bias and UN TRUTH on this web site as truth about IB is dishonest and deceitful.

I would suggest you speak with a few college admissions officers and hear what they have to say. I have and I can tell you that they appreciate both AP and IB. But, where IB is offered and students take the AP route, the AP route is judged as the less rigorous route. I love the fact that my daughter who is thriving in IB has had to think. YES, THINK, not memorize a statistic or fact, but think. This great nation was built by people who were not afraid to work a little harder, and were not afraid to think a little differently and deeper.

It continually saddens me everytime you send out an overzealous, almost panicked email about a slight that you feel someone has dealt your point of view. Your point of view is not well researched and is simply your point of view built on fear.

And by the way, my daughter and her graduating class of IB diploma kids are not socialist, nor are they out to bring sococialistic overhaul to our country. They are actually a group of diverse brilliant kids, Christian, Jewish, Undecided, etc., who have worked their hearts out thinking, analyzing and discussing. My daughter went in as a conservative Christian and remains a conservative Christian today. But, you bet she learned to think a little deeper and not just memorize a fact for a test. And, she clearly realizes that there are others with different points of view and beliefs. She said to me "success will mean toleration and the ability to understand that although someone may think or believe differently, it is what they think and believe and how we bring all of our points of view to the table and work for a better solution is certainly better than a constant bitch fest, where nothing happens".

I can also tell you that our district loves the fact that the teachers in the IB program have to step it up as well. They are evaluated on a higher level and on a level that is out of the politics and tenor of teachers who have grown bored and complacent.

I am not asking you to change your belief, but please change the title of your website. Change the misleading title to anything that truly represents your biased slant. All of the people who want to distrust and build a conspiracy theory around IB, will be with you and will continue coming to you. But, the rest of us will be enjoying our kids as we watch them continue to grow and learn in a global economy with a worldly point of view and not being sheltered or encumbered by a group who still believes that America is the only "right" and "brilliant" nation in the world. Many nations "Rome", "The Soviet Union" have fallen when they cease to learn, and realize they are not the only society on the planet.

Imagine for a moment if you will, a society of children and young adults with the foundation of greatness that built this nation. On this foundation they add building blocks of a worldly point of view and an open mind on ways that we can work together in a global society and business world. Imagine a group of young adults coming out of college wanting to listen and solve problems and not a group of young adults stuck in the old philosophy "I am American, that makes me right and I have the only solution to every problem". I know it because I tested and pass a test.

I am actually a bit sorry for you, because had you or if you ever choose to leave your prejudice behind, you may find a very different and honest point of view about IB.

IB is not perfect, but I have found few things in life that are perfect. And it is fact that with our current educational system, we are falling behind. Maybe you should also build a forum around the failures of our current educational system.

In summary, there is little TRUTH on your website, until you are challenged to post a positive and unbiased point of view about IB and then it is sparse and posted with your biased sarcasm.

Sincerely,
Michelle Rosson
Global Business Woman and Proud IB Parent

After being advised she was being removed from the courtesy update list, Ms. Rosson replied:

Wow. I express a different point of view and you delete me from your mailing list. Sounds a bit socialistic to me.

So, now the shoe is on the other foot. Below you chastize MLive and wonder if you will be published? Well, I now wonder if you are at all interested in discussion and challenging points of view and I am sure that I will not get published on your website.

I think my question is answered by my removal from your mailing list.

I have one question for this woman... without memorization just how does she think her kid is 'remembering" any of this socialistic IB propaganda?

Does her kid have a magic IB fairy that comes down to hand deliver the IB indoctrination materials to her just when her brains needs the information for her tests? Good grief, without memorization we would all resemble brain injury victims who have short memory and long term memory skills that are severely impaired. Just what does this mother think all of those DEEP talks are about? 

Give me a break...IB is about nothing more then insane repetition to the point of hardcore indoctrination. Which is exactly why I pulled my kid out. There is NO room for true critical thinking when kid is in a program that uses repetition ad nauseam for as long as it takes to change the true critical thinking of that kid to the ideology of what IB demands they leave IB with. 

Take care and hang in there

Pamela


sorry, I couldn't sit and read through the whole email. it is always the same thing blagh blagh blagh. ms rossen did you ever read a book instead of listening to the crap they deal you when you go to the college admissions office? that is right crap! it is all a load of first handed crap because college admissions live for people like you. When they see someone like you walking in the door they take their crap hats out and put them on and say here comes another socialist that is the major makeup of our foundation. If colleges didnt have people like you they wouldn't survive. i am not a fan of glenn beck however, i heard the comparison from someone on pjtv his book arguing with idiots is exactly the same arguments you have in college. this has already taken up too much of my time so for now keep listening to the crap the socialist are feeding you. You may want to read The Harsh Truth About Public Schools By Bruce N. Shortt. You will find that Lisa is not a fear monger or using scare tactics. - name withheld by request