I suggested the reading list for IB, not the program itself. Please don’t have a caps-cow. The literature selections are excellent, regardless of how they are taught.

Jane Eyre in 8th grade? I guess that’s when you’d have to teach it so all the sexual innuendo and social transgressiveness will sail over their heads. It’s always been one of my favorites, but it is sooo much more fun to read now.

Last year he took American Lit in 11th grade.

Note the lack of TRASH that is required reading in the nearby public school, with that of what the private school requires.

As far as IB goes, it’s a Constructivist setting where kids have to teach themselves. I’m not sending them to school for the teacher to “facilitate”. IB is more political indoctrination courtesy of UNESCO. I’d rather he be educated, instead of indoctrinated. IB is on record for being a program that seeks to create peace activists among the student population via Values Clarification. My kids are not seeking to become UN peace keepers.

His Honors America Lit was not an AP class.

Why not look at the standard seniors’ reading list?

First of all, we pay for pubic schools. It’s reasonable to request posting texts/curriculum online. It’s really not that big of a deal to request transparency, is it?

Second, my youngest will be starting 5th grade next year in a Catholic school. Last year two kids from the public schools transferred into his school to start 6th grade. After a few weeks they quickly discovered that those two children were no where near the other 6th graders who had gone k-6 in the Catholic school. Those two children were then placed in the 5th grade.

By 6th grade our students are ONE grade level AHEAD of the public school students.

When my son brings home his homework, rarely do I have to sit down with him and do it with him. ONce in a while he’ll ask me a question for clarification, but often times he knows how to do the homework because luckily he is in a school where they actually TEACH instead of allowing him to flounder around trying to teach himself.

I’ve personally tutored kids who were in math classes where they were expected to teach themselves Alg. I. Here’s a clue…it didn’t work. They came to me and I did the job of the teacher…and TAUGHT them.

Now are we going to continue to try to figure out why our country falls far behind the rest of the world? I’d say it’s pretty simple. TEACH the KIDS.
RETURN TO TRADITIONAL methods of teaching
ABANDON the FADS
Kick PSYCHOLOGY OUT of the Schools of ED and Education

Oh, and one more point…my 12th grader last year had to read several books for his Honors American Lit class….
Books like:
The Great Gatsby
The Fountainhead
Grapes of Wrath
My Antonia
A Farewell to Arms
The Scarlet Letter
…and a few others

Compare that to the reading assigned to a friend in the public high school that had to read…I LIKE GUYS by Sedaris who is a gay activist and The Crack Cocaine Diet.

Now…..who do you think is getting a QUALITY education?

The Ed establishment in many public schools rejected the Traditional Carnegie type of Education and bought into the fads that will prepare them to flip my hamburgers at McDonalds!

If in fact the parents never see what their students are doing–ever–then yes, we could certainly agree that schools need to ensure that parents have access to their students’ work. But that’s different from demanding the form that it take.

As a recent ed school graduate (or survivor), I think the fuss about curriculum is extremely overrated.

And what good is an assignment like writing a research paper (3rd grade) when the students haven’t been instructed how to do research, construct an outline, and so forth? What happens it that parents have to do the instruction the school leaves out, and most likely the project as well.