School program needs support, not audit
Marjorie Cortez
Newsweek now ranks the nation's top high schools. One of the metrics of the magazine's rating system is whether a school has an International Baccalaureate Diploma Program. Many colleges and universities give additional consideration in their admissions processes to students who complete this program.
Salt Lake City's West High School, which has offered the IB program for 20 years, ranked 282nd among Newsweek's 1,350 top high schools list for 2007. West was the highest-ranking Utah school on the list.
If you attend West High's commencement exercises Thursday night, you will observe that a good many of the graduates earned IB diplomas or partial IB diplomas. Taking rigorous classes pays off in terms of higher scores on college admission tests and successful completion of college. As taxpayers, parents and future employers, it's something that we should demand.
Sheesh.
As if it takes an audit. A simple telephone call to the participating school districts or schools would answer any questions state lawmakers might have. Instead of paying for an audit, lawmakers could appropriate the money that would have been spent on an audit on the IB program.
As for entering contracts with international organizations, it's fair to surmise that any school with foreign exchange students, study abroad programs or character education programs that perform service work outside the U.S. enter into legal contracts with people in other countries. Does the Legislature want to micromanage that, too?
Implementing an IB program is a school-based decision. The faculty has to buy in, of course, but the local school board has the final say. It's a textbook case of local control. Most of us want the people closest to our schools governing our schools.
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