<p>Well, I’m no fan of dumbing down classes – but that’s far from what AVID means. There aren’t many high schools – even in relatively affluent areas – where a third or more of the kids aren’t performing to their potential. Programs like AVID provide sustained support and encouragement to help this middle group achieve at high levels. Think Jaime Escalante, not getting rid of AP. </p>
<p>And I would guess that your high school has spent a huge amount of money supporting IB classes over the years – and that it wouldn’t be amiss if some of the funds were directed to support the kids in the middle who could, with support, take those AP and pre-AP classes, and do very well.</p>
<p>Thanks sandrasccr. As Arabrab pointed out earlier, it is not enough to purchase a program – implementing it well is important too. </p>
<p>What Jaime Escalante has been famous for (as I understand it) is high standards paired with a strong work effort. I want to make sure that is what our school would be undertaking.</p>
<p>I would ask the GCs to tell you the percentage of your high school class that goes directly from high school to a 4 year college. If it is a very high number, as you suspect, then spending $50K to start an AVID program doesn’t sound like money well spent. (I had no idea that it was that expensive…)</p>
<p>It sounds like it is $25,000 for years one and two ($50 K total) and then an annual fee of $3400. </p>
<p>I haven’t heard what the staffing level might be to go with this. One of our teachers is a half time IB coordinator and I wonder if that is part of the high cost of IB. One part of IB that is expensive is the mailing of documents (essays, tests). I don’t understand why they don’t do more electronically – perhaps that is coming (after our HS drops out!).</p>
<p>Yes, IB requires a coordinator (and it is a really necessary position, from what I’ve seen) – and the training often requires some expensive travel to get there. AP does not require nearly as much coordination. You also don’t have the same type of assessments with AP – the two weeks of AP testing each May is pretty much it.</p>
<p>One possibility that hasn’t been mentioned here, is that this HS is looking ahead and can see that in the future it is going to be recorded as not meeting some NCLB standards. There are a fair number of schools that appear on the “Newseek Top 100” list at the same time that they are being cited under NCLB for not showing “sufficient progress” for some segment of the school population. The school administration may perceive AVID as a way to keep pulling up the lower end (however small that population is) so that the school can dodge an NCLB death-trap.</p>
<p>I do know our principal is concerned about new regulations (State? Federal?) that evaluates principals every three years – if certain criteria are not met, then the principal is booted. </p>
<p>That sounds like one of those harsh accountability tries that may bomb in practice. Who replaces the booted principal? Usually the really good ones invest themselves hugely into their school and are disinclined to move from a strong program (built with their blood, sweat and tears) to a struggling program (unless there are other factors, such as pay, or closeness to family)</p>
<p>I truly can see all (or most) sides of these issues. Principals and school data can be boosted or eroded by community demographics. </p>
<p>IB gave our high school students a chance to embrace the highest of standards and the greatest of HS rigor available. That’s not the only way to do this but IB certainly has structures and external guidelines to keep rigor in place.</p>
<p>Well, an update for those of you interested in political chicanery. We parents are now being “Surveyed” about the changeover from IB to AP. The front piece to the survey tells us that IB is much more costly but the way the numbers are trotted out it is very hard to make a side by side comparison. </p>
<p>For instance, one AP course, in say, Spanish, would, of course be a whole lot cheaper for the district than a full IB program. We aren’t being told how many AP classes would be offered or how much retraining staff might be. </p>
<p>Congress does this to us all the time – so do inflamnatory talk show hosts. But it makes me sad to see our school staff doing this. Bummer.</p>
<p>Olymom–so your preference would be to keep the IB program? </p>
<p>I feel for principals…in our district, we had a great middle school principal for years. His was the top middle school in the district. Of course, the school’s boundaries included the higher income areas served by the school district.</p>
<p>He gets transferred to a low performing school in a low income district. Next thing you know, he’s fired because his school is low performing. If you’re a teacher, why would you ever sign up to be a principal?!!!</p>
<p>In our high school, the cost of the IB program (half-time coordinator with a PhD, half-time administrative assistant, training & related travel costs, shipping costs) exceeded $90K a year. AP costs (for training and seminars) were usually under $6K a year, though I’m sure that there would be more incurred in a start-up year. That’s a big difference. We had 14 pre-IB (9th & 10th grade) courses, and 12 IB courses. We also had 12 AP courses. Of the 12 AP courses, 3 were language courses that were intended to both handle AP and IB students where enrollment didn’t justify separate sections. I haven’t seen the detailed numbers in the past two years, but I suspect that they haven’t radically changed. Having a half-time coordinator with a masters degree instead of a PhD would have dropped the cost of the IB program to around $83K a year. IB is inherently a much more expensive program to operate than AP.</p>
<p>Truthfully I think that AP could serve more students in our school. At the same time, IB is a higher caliber program. </p>
<p>We clearly are doing IB on the cheap. We have a teacher who coordinates all the IB work as a part time job. He would love to have an assistant (no doubt works many hours beyond the paid hours). </p>
<p>It may be that our school has no choice but to drop the IB program. I understand that. But if AP is going to cost, say $6K and there is 14K left for “advanced programming”, just what will that look like? </p>
<p>You could make the case that the money could be diverted to more kindergarten staff because small classes at age 5 does help students become stronger and (I suspect) more likely to take AP classes later in life. But is that sort of thing really in the spirit of “advanced programming” for high schoolers? </p>
<p>In our case, it looks like the savings will be diverted to implementing the AVID program. I’m not sure that’s an awful thing – (neither is small kindergarten classes) - but, wow, it sure doesn’t fill the same shoes as the IB program. And in that lies my heartache.</p>
<p>First, I hate when the word elitist is applied to parents who are seeking out advanced classes for their high achieving kids. In my experience those who do this have never had a high achieving kid whom they cared enough for, to strive to get them the resources that they need.</p>
<p>Second, I hate the push toward making all services the same for everyone since everyone has different needs. Our administrators have pushed toward eliminating AP because as they say every student should be taught to be collegebound in the regular classes.</p>
<p>I will however tell you that although we don’t have an AVID program after looking at this program on the AVID website my impression was very different than yours. I saw our administration wanting to bring the top down and keep everyone at the same level. I see AVID as a program that brings the middle and bottom up. I’m sure there are some that would call me a helicopter parent, yet the AVID program looks wonderful to me. Although I have always tried, and I think I have succeded to a large extent, in teaching my kids to value education, there are study tools, and teaching strategies that I don’t have the expertise to use with my kids. Athough I have a kid who does well and takes advanced classes I believe that he might learn to perform more effectively and could become a better student with a program like AVID. </p>
<p>If it is a good program, the envioronment in which it evolves will effect the way it is implemented. What a program such as AVID needs to teach in a disadvantaged community is not the same as what it might focus on in a community with parents who are involved and hands on. Not every kid who is motivated to do well figures out how to achieve their potential even with a helicopter mom. I see AVID as a program that can support kids who don’t know how to be as successful as they want to be. Honestly I see it as a program that could do a better job than I do and would take some pressure off me. I would be cheering if our school district was going to adopt this program.</p>
<p>Just one note though: I’ve done both IB and AP (full diploma + additional AP courses since my school didn’t have certain subjects for IB) and I have to say that while AP prepares you for college very well, IB probably does a more thorough job. In my experience with peers from both programs, the IB kids tend to be more intellectual and ‘love learning for learning’s sake.’ They’re also encouraged more to question what’s taught to them and dig deeper. Research is also a big component of IB which AP seems to lack. The other big difference is that IB requires you to take courses in certain sectors. While it does make for more headache while going through it, I have to say that it was one of, if not the best, experiences in my life. It really does open your eyes to new perspectives and cultivates appreciations for other fields. I get the feeling that IB as a whole likes to encourage a certain inquisitive attitude in students and turn them into something like the polymaths of the enlightenment besides preparing them for college whereas AP is strictly just college prep. That said, AP is a great program and IB isn’t for everyone but I do feel that IB is a very unique and rewarding experience that <em>most</em> studnts enthusiastic to advance their learning to a deeper level will benefit from more.</p>
<p>Spectrum and disgradius are capturing some of my concerns. </p>
<p>Sure, you can be an insightful, questioning, independent thinker having had AP courses (or no AP courses) – IB just helps you get to that point through some specific training.</p>
<p>As an IB teacher I have asked many of my former students if they felt IB benefited them once they graduated and the vast majority told me that it did. They said they found the first few years of college easier than their peers because they knew how to research, delve a little deeper and multitask better.</p>
<p>No question that IB is an excellent program. But, it is an expensive program. Also no question that the vast majority of students attending Ivy League and other highly selective colleges did not go to high schools offering the IB program. Students can be very successful with AP, and can choose (as my D did) to take AP classes and exams well outside her areas of strength. There have been quite a few AP vs. IB threads on CC over the years, and you’ll find staunch defenders of both and staunch haters of both. Not sure who wins.</p>
<p>From a strictly cost perspective, I can’t see how to offer a full IB program without spending a lot more than offering a quality AP program. While I am all in favor of kids being offered plentiful options for advanced and honors classes, I am also in favor of doing more than we have traditionally done to support “middle” students so that they can be successful in high level classes like AP or IB. If I were the principal, and I saw the savings from switching from IB to AP as the vehicle that would let me invest more to support the group that currently gets little or nothing --that group in the middle – I’d do it. Others would certainly do differently.</p>
<p>arabrab I am with you. There is a lot of money available ONLY to kids at either end. If you only have X number of dollars available that are more discretionary it makes sound educational (as well as political) sense to see that students in the middle are served by a part of it.</p>
<p>Just a reminder that AVID is also focused on college awareness, support in selection and application etc and if there is not a parent at home who can help kids with this (and outside the CC world there often isn’t) that is an invaluable service to provide. </p>
<p>Every member of my daughters’ graduating class who was an AVID student is continuing their education. Some are at CC but most are at 4 year schools.</p>
<p>Ok, We downsize from IB (Cost about $23K per year) to a nice spectrum of AP courses (we’ll allocate about $8K to include some training and transition costs). </p>
<p>The district allocates $20K a year for “advanced programming”. Now we are clearly within budget (with IB we were not). Now we have 12K that is supposed to be for “advanced programming”.</p>
<p>What is wise, appropriate use for the 12K? We need to keep an eye out here or it can melt away into general funds (not that I am against football or cheer squad but they do tend to have activist parents on the Site council. Money on the table gets grabbed quick). </p>
<p>What would you want to see to augment the AP? We have traditionally had about 30 kids a year get the full IB diploma (school of about 1,300 with about 420 per class).</p>