[alum]

KR, since I think you live in Anne Arundel, see if you can get the Washington Post articles, read them and then disregard everything. Jay Matthews is the education specialist for the Post and is gung-ho IB. He is also an advocate of anyone taking APs or IBs whether or not they really belong in the class, therefore a big fan of the Newsweek Challenge Index.

In Fairfax County (the 12th largest school system in the country so there are a lot of high schools), the IB curriculum was put at poorly performing schools with high ESOLs and F/R Lunch statistics. This was done as an effort to draw more motivated students from an AP hs with relatively high socieconomic indicators as compared to these schools, somewhat akin to magnet schools.

Unfortunately what has happened is that parents are regarding the IB as a lesser program because it was placed in the schools near the bottom of the FFX rankings. People are trying to pupil-place their kids OUT of an IB school into an AP school at a much higher rate than vice versa.

I also disagree with letting anyone take an AP class just based on their/their parents' desire. The classes cannot move at the necessary rapid pace of a college-equivalent course, because the teachers have to spend too much time reviewing. Many teachers are strongly opposed to this trend.