Global Education under Attack: International Baccalaureate in America

Global Education Under Attack: International Baccalaureate in America Tristan Bunnell Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 2012 ISBN 978-3-631-63394-6The International Baccalaureate (IB) is currently experiencing huge rates of growth not only worldwide but particularly in the United States. A fascinating new book Tristan Bunnell, the distinguished commentator on the IB and international education, relates how, while 12 candidates were entered in the US for the IB Diploma Programme (IBDP) in 1968, by May 2010 the population of US IBDP candidates had grown to 57,000.Moreover, the scale of growth of the IB in the US is exemplified by the observations that, whereas the 3000th IB World School to be authorised was Brown Academy in Chattanooga, Tennessee (July 2010), the 2000th IB school in the 'Americas' region (IBA) alone was South Texas Business, Education and Technology Academy, which was authorised in April 2012 (p7). Based on current projections, it has been proposed that 'the May 2020 IBDP examination could feasibly involve 200,000 candidates across America' (p8).The growth of the IB in the US can be correlated with the policy turn towards increasing global competitiveness through outcomes-based education and the implementation of internationally bench-marked standards. Bunnell argues that a driver contributing to the growth of the IB in the US may be identified with education policy such as the Goals 2000: Educate America Act (1994) that stated that 'every adult American will possess the knowledge and skills necessary to compete in a global economy' (page 12).This policy was superseded by the No Child Left Behind Act (2001) that is based on the premise that setting high standards, establishing measurable goals and implementing a regime of rigorous educational assessment can improve individual outcomes in education. Many school districts in the US have identified the programmes of the IB as levers for achieving such policy outcomes. Opportunities such as these have led to uneven growth and 'mission creep' as the IB has arguably abandoned its core niche audience of the international schools community in pursuit of expansion into a single national market.Nonetheless, despite the statistics, the growth and development of the IB in America has not been entirely without opposition. The actions of 'a committee of teachers, parents and students [that] voted 15 to 10 to reject a planned IB programme' at WT Woodson High School, Fairfax County, Virginia in 1999 (page 13) has been interpreted as 'a full-fledged anti-IB revolt' (Mathews and Hill, 2006: 131). Another event that was widely reported as far afield as the UK Guardian newspaper concerned a proposition to discontinue the IBDP at Upper St Clair High School in Pittsburgh.Police had to be called to the normally genteel high school after the district meeting broke down in chaos as almost 1000 pupils and parents who wanted to save the IB heckled the board. Since the vote, one of the board members who opposes the IB and calls its internationalist, pro-egalitarian ideals 'Marxist' has received death threats (Guardian, 2006).There appears to be vehement opposition in some quarters to the growth of IB programmes in the US, as a cursory glance at the 'Truth about IB' website () will demonstrate. It appears that a varied collection of political forces, including those associated with the libertarian right Tea Party movement, have been agitating against the spread of IB programmes. What are the objections of these radical conservative pressure groups? Perhaps it is best to allow the critics of the IB to express their views in their own words. An op-ed column in the North Lake Tahoe Bonanza (dated 3rd February, 2010) quoted by Bunnell (p34) argues that:IB is nothing more than a political ruse to indoctrinate students by a foreign entity that is an arm of UNESCO ... IB is a bigger part of its socialist political agenda to dumb-down our public schools and make them subservient to IBO's ideology to create 'global citizens' and a New World Order. …