CEO Commentary

     In today’s educational climate of watered down academics, content-free standards, and bogus assessments, many parents are on a mission to find schools with programs that ensure their children the best education possible. In this quest, they are willing to move into school districts with good academic reputations, pay higher taxes, and make sacrifices.

     The education reformers of the past 20 years, with their vacuous promises of “world class standards,” have only been successful in delivering a “one size fits all” education system that values equity over excellence. With education’s focus on students just below proficiency, the educational needs of the brightest and best are often neglected.

     The IB program appeals to parents, students, and teachers who place a premium on a challenging educational experience, a strong work ethic, and high expectations of excellence. These components of IB include:

• foreign languages
• community service
• interdisciplinary approach to subjects
• high level reading, research, and writing skills
• preparation for a rigorous college course load

      Schools that have been resistant to watered down academics and serious about addressing the needs of their best students often find that curricula produced outside the system offers the best hope for high achieving students. IB seems to fill that void.

       The controversy around the IB does not target the rigor of the program. The controversy involves what the IB course of studies is designed to produce --students with the “supranational ” worldview.

CEO’s Research

      When CEO began this examination of the International Baccalaureate, we found it to be a rigorous academic program.

      A cursory review of the IB does not show the scope of the program. The IBO website is short on details. However, the writings of IBO administrators and supporters as well as various reporters reveal the underpinnings of the program – why the program was developed for use in schools around the world and what its goals are.

      These materials reveal the close interrelationship of IB with the U.N. and Earth Charter. All three are working internationally to move students toward acceptance of “supranational ” governance, sustainability in social, economic, and ecological issues, social and economic justice, and population control .

IB as Transformational Education

      CEO also found that IB presents its program as a transformational education system. In order to understand the IB and its objectives, it is essential to understand the meaning of “ transformational education.”

      Transformational learning is a term used in psychotherapy to describe the process of using guided inputs to change an individual’s belief system and subsequent behaviors. It is this transformational learning process that guides a person to a turning point when-

•  the smoker adopts a new set of values and stop smoking

•  a drug user seeks help for recovery

•  the criminal is motivated to turn from a life of crime

•  a person with an eating disorder abandons harmful thinking and behaviors

Transformational education :

•  brings about the abandonment of an idea, belief, or value, and the adoption of a new idea, belief, or value

•  can be used in a positive or negative way

•  employs strategies that lead an individual to a predetermined outcome or goal

•  creates “cognitive dissonance” in an individual in order to challenge and change a belief system

“Cognitive dissonance” occurs when a deeply held conviction or set of values is challenged by techniques that go beyond normal classroom practices, including emotional manipulation, peer pressure, or group intervention against the individual’s beliefs.

In American classrooms, students bring beliefs and values from home. These can include allegiances to the child’s family, church, homeland, school, culture, etc. Cognitive dissonance is the introduction of strong, opposing beliefs that create a natural discomfort within the individual. The resolution of that discomfort comes when the child accepts the new idea or belief in an environment that supports it.

The Core Question

        CEO has concluded that IB is a program of both education and transformation . With beliefs and values subtly interwoven with the curriculum and teaching strategies, students gradually accept these values and beliefs over time. And although some parents and students may agree with the underlying principles and education objectives, others may not.

So we are left with a core question:

Should America’s public schools use taxpayer money for an education program that transforms students so they adopt a specific set of beliefs and values that lead to the acceptance of “ supranational ” governance? In other words, should American public schools be the vehicle for advancing the goals and objectives of the U.N., Earth Charter, and IBO?

       Every school district in America answers this question when elected school board directors and administrators evaluate a program’s academic content and goals and select the best curriculum for their students and community.

Please continue through this web page to get an understanding of the scope of the IB program

and how CEO came to these conclusions.