The Foreign Service Journal, December 2006

D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 6 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 101 S CHOOLS S UPPLEMENT al-Haddad, communications manager at IBO. “Teachers regularly partici- pate in international teacher training workshops. The organization takes these quality-control processes very seriously.” Yet some parents and students have found that IB programs can still vary in quality. One parent, whose child went from high school in Arlington, Va., to an IB World School in Africa, has commented sadly that “the IB work here is not as challeng- ing as the 9th-grade honors courses there. So I would not agree that the IB program is superior to the better private schools. The other possibility is that this is just a bad implementa- tion of the program. The IB struc- ture is there, but the depth of thought and exploration and quality of teaching are not. I think my son would have ended up with a better high school education had we stayed in Virginia.” “I guess the moral is that all IB schools are not equal,” adds another parent who has put several children through various IB programs. “It does depend so much on the direc- tor, on the teaching staff, on the school board and on the community — just as at any school. All the same basic issues (economics, demograph- ics and size of the student body, etc.) still apply in an IB school.” IBO’s al-Haddad counters: “From Continued on page 104 As with any curriculum, the classes are more likely to be good if the teachers, administrators and students are motivated.