Schools See IB Degree as Way to Boost Minority Achievement

At the end of that first year, Calhoon received the Mount Vernon results in a big white envelope; in many subjects, the grades were distressingly low.

The average score in IB physics was 3.5, below the international average of 4.39. The results in biology were not much better -- an average for the school of 3.69 compared with an international average of 4.39.

And Calhoon was not getting nearly as many minority students into the program as she had thought she would. Barely 10 percent of IB participants the first year were Hispanic or black.

Calhoon and Glaze wanted IB classes to reflect the ethnic mix of the school. To do that, they would have to lure indifferent teenagers into the tougher classes. Through intensive counseling with each student, and the national program Advancement Via Individual Determination that taught study habits, they made progress.

As the program grew, several teachers said, they began to realize that the IB final exams' emphasis on analysis gave them an opportunity to teach in different ways.

Daniel Coast, a biology teacher recruited from a more rural school system in Charles County, struggled to meet IB's demands but found one useful technique. He gave juniors writing their first lab reports a second chance when their first efforts did not meet IB standards.

When two minority boys deft at basketball analysis complained about Glaze's IB Theory of Knowledge class, they did better after she told them: "Your brains know what to do. Just treat Plato as though he were Michael Jordan."

Other students found motivation in unexpected places.

Turning the Corner

At the end of her sophomore year in 1999, Christin Roach's friends were saying they were going for the IB diploma, but she could tell a few were wavering. They had seen the frantic looks on the faces of some IB seniors in the last week before their 4,000-word extended essays were due. They began to realize how hard it would be to do that project as well as pass difficult exams in six subjects.

Class ring selection time came for Roach's class, and one of the options the company offered was a ring with the IB diploma symbol. Many of her friends wanted the distinguished-looking emblem on their rings but were timid about ordering without knowing if they would remain in the program.

Roach ordered a gold class ring, with the IB emblem on one side and the National Honor Society emblem on the other. This, she said, was a way to stay on track. She wore the ring almost every day and even wrote one of her college application essays about that decision -- how it had seemed small and trivial but had far-reaching consequences.

Breigh Miller started the IB program late; her counselor didn't think she was ready for pre-IB in ninth grade, and enrolled her in only one pre-IB course in 10th grade. She decided to try IB anyway. In the 11th grade she took seven demanding courses at once. Her paper in anthropology was so good it was selected as a model for other IB schools.

By the end of the 1990s, Fairfax was on its way to putting IB in eight of its 24 academic high schools. Not all of the IB programs were successful. At W.T. Woodson High School, some parents and teachers revolted in 1999 when they realized that IB was going to replace, not just supplement, the Advanced Placement program.

Years later, Stanford economist Thomas Sowell wrote a newspaper column that said IB was just "one of a series of fad programs" and Woodson was wise to get rid of it.

But such statements were rarely heard at Mount Vernon High. The IB scores increased, and teachers, parents and administrators spoke of a change in the school's image. The IB program put Mount Vernon among the top 3 percent of high schools in the country, as measured by participation in college-level tests.

The program was not cheap, but the educators involved thought it was worth it. In 2004 the cost of test and registration fees, plus an annual school registration fee, totaled $55,906 at Mount Vernon, with none of the fees charged to students. Some Fairfax schools spent nearly that much on their baseball and softball programs.

For Amundson, the school board member who had gotten the money for IB, the defining moment came when she was at a neighborhood party, making the political rounds, and overheard a mother talking to other parents about the local schools.

Some of their children had gotten into private schools. Some were applying to Jefferson, the science magnet. But this mother had her own good news to share: "My daughter has been admitted to that very good IB program at Mount Vernon," she said.