IB program in transition

    Like any advanced high school curriculum, the AHS IB program faces the difficult challenge of balancing the success of the program as a whole with the amount of students it is providing for.

    While AHS’s program has been recognized as being one of the best in the world for the amount of students it enrolls and the diversity of this student base, May 2007 test scores reflect a decrease in the achievement of students on exams than as has been present in past years, and raise key questions about how the IB program will be run in regards to the upcoming testing season and beyond.

    “My general reaction to the scores this year was that there were no surprises,” Albright said. “That is, where we are usually low we struggled, and where we are high we tended to stay high. That’s kind of what you want to see as an IB coordinator. We know where we need to work and teachers are definitely working to improve scores in those areas.”

    AHS had ten test subjects improve in terms of average points scored in May 2007 over May 2007. Ten test subjects fell in average points. Three subjects had the same average test scores in May 2007 as in May 2006.

    The amount of points dropped over all subjects outweighed the number of points gained, and 19 out of 29 test subjects still remained with averages below the world average. 12 of those 19 test subjects had “failing” averages (averages below four).

    Many of the subjects in which AHS students improved are those that students consistently score well in, such as English HL, History of the Americas HL, and Biology HL. On the other hand, the areas in which students scored poorly are those in which students consistently fall short, such as Chemistry SL, Latin SL, and Theatre Arts HL.

    Albright has guided various IB departments to develop better test preparation plans for this year.

    “What we ask for is that all teachers analyze their scores and look at their results critically to make a plan for how they are going to improve scores for this year,” Albright said. “Scores show us what kids are learning and how they need to improve their learning. If scores are low, we ask, where are students scoring low and how can we improve scores there?”

    For each different IB test subject, a report is issued by the IB organization explaining what educators did well during the former testing season, and how they can improve their students’ chances of obtaining high scores in the upcoming testing season.

    “Basically, what we ask is for teachers to develop plans based on what they plan to do with their courses,” Albright said.

    AHS is not alone in its poor performance on some tests. Many of the subject areas in which AHS students scored poorly are those that Fairfax County students as a whole scored poorly in. For instance, county average scores for IB Physics SL were 3.5, 3.6, 3.61, 3.31, 3.32, 4.88, and 3.11. AHS had the same average score as that of the county, which was 3.5.

    However, as Albright explains, topping the world average is not everything, and the AHS IB Diploma program takes many more factors into account than having high scores, especially in regards to participation.

    “We are doing IB in a way that no one else in the world is doing,” Albright said, in reference to the fact that 45% of AHS students take an IB course, a statistic that for most schools worldwide is around 10%. “There are incredible stories of struggle among the 27 IB Diploma Candidates this year, and it’s unbelievable and remarkable.”

    It is a common misconception that the IB Diploma Program is geared specifically to generate high scores. The more realistic objective is to get as many high school students to participate in the program as possible at the highest level of academic excellence as possible. It is a difficult, multivariable conundrum to balance, and so far Albright has been in favor of expanding the program over restricting access to achieve all 7’s.  

    “The research shows that all students can benefit from taking the most challenging classes appropriate for that student, rather than sliding by,” Albright said. “No student benefits from sliding by in courses. We have to remember that we are a public school, and that we need to educate students to be a part of an educated citizenry.”

    The fact that being in an upper level classroom benefits a school’s students rather than forcing only the most elite students to take such upper level classes is reflected in the Washington Post Challenge Index, which measures not the overall scores of a school’s students on IB and AP tests but rather how many AP and IB tests are taken by students in a school each year (divided by the size of the senior class), regardless of performance.

    Still, test scores remain a key component in the measures of success of a school and an IB program, allowing students and teachers to measure the rigor of their coursework as a means to determine if performance on tests needs to be preceded by more preparation.

    Given this, test score statistics can be misleading. When put into context, AHS’s program is relatively equal to those of its area peers in regards to test scores. Subjects in which AHS often excels usually can be explained by other data. For instance, AHS’s IB History of the Americas HL average score is the highest in the county, at 5.35.

    However, AHS’s course has a much lower enrollment than those of other county schools. Last year 40 students took the IB History of the Americas HL test. Other schools in the county had enrollments of 187, 123, 113, 88, 157, 65 and 74.

    In the upcoming testing season, Albright and teachers will have to look for ways to improve scores in certain areas. The question is whether or not this improvement in future years will be accompanied with a rise in the selectivity of the program.

    “We don’t want to improve scores by restricting student access,” Albright said. “But I think that what happens sometimes is as teachers have made their courses more challenging to improve scores, the word has gotten out and students that might have thought they could slide by in the courses end up not taking them.”

    Faculty members expressed why they might have stumbled in 2007, and numerous ways in which they have improved review for test-taking this year or how test-taking can be improved in the future.

    “It was my first year going through all of the material, so there was a bit of a learning curve,” said Jim Evans, IB Mathematics HL teacher. “I made some mistakes, such as not allowing enough time for review….We will use all of our flex time this year for review.”

    Last year, Evans explained, higher level students encountered many obstacles when it came to testing. “I realized early on that teaching Calculus senior year was not a good idea, because the kids forgot all of the other stuff we learned from junior year,” he said. Now, the order for IB Mathematics HL students has been switched.

    Richard Miller, IB Environmental Systems teacher, also expressed ways that test preparation could improve during the school year. “We need more tests and quizzes,” he said. “We need more accountability. One of the problems is that there is not enough accountability for the test, except for the Diploma Candidates. If you’re a certificate student your score doesn’t really affect you; grades are released the summer after your senior year, you are already prepping for college, and there is little credit involved for a number of tests.”

    “I’m not satisfied with what we did last year in that I am resting on my laurels,” Albright said, “But I think there always needs to be a process of continuous improvement.”

    Even if the scores do not show it, Albright mentioned, we have to remember that in the realm of IB, AHS far exceeds many other schools worldwide.

    “We are so diverse – it really does benefit everyone,” Albright said. “In many ways we are ahead of everyone else. We don’t have all the answers, but we will figure it out.”