The International Baccalaureate Career Programme: a case study of college and career readiness policy goals

Abstract

The International Baccalaureate (IB) is noted in school reform policy circles as the gold standard of academic excellence. While the presence of IB as a sought-after education vendor has grown in the past decade, the organization has attempted to shake off its image as an elite agency serving only private international schools with its longstanding liberal arts curriculum. As such its turn toward the public sector in the United States with a credential for vocational students appears perplexing and out of step with its product brand, but the newer Career Programme (CP) is marketed as meeting the needs of applied learners in secondary schools. This paper offers a case study of two schools in one US state that adopted the CP, generating IB school enrollments from among talented vocational students while elevating its ranking on the college and career readiness (CCR) score, an annual assessment of postsecondary success. The CCR policy reformers advocate curricular improvements so that all students receive the academic foundations and employability skills needed to thrive in the new economy. Yet the egalitarian discourse of CCR could not be attended to using the CP. In this case study only high-achieving students were advised to participate and enroll in the program.

Keywords:

• College and career readiness
• International Baccalaureate Career Programme
• quasi-markets in education
• school reform
• policy enactments

Notes

1. The Chicago Public Schools (CPS) offer an IB model of open access admissions throughout the entire school building – what is termed a wall-to-wall IB implementation plan. In designated schools all CPS students participate in some aspect of the IB Programmes, usually the IB core. A traditional IB implementation plan uses selective admissions which results in student segregation by curriculum track. In this design IB cohorts operate as a school-within-a-school (see Cambridge 2012).

2. The data was collected based on Yin’s (2014, 106) sources of evidence. Documentation of the CP development was gathered from the IB Coordinator’s files, such as course syllabi and related curricular materials. Archival Records of online federal and state files were used, such as NCES with census data on the two school districts: one an upper-middle-class school nationally ranked with an IB Programme, and the other a middle-class school with an IB magnet Programme. Interviews were conducted from key informants to glean information on the implementation and impact of the IB. Direct Observation of IB classrooms (with field notes) offered insights into the pedagogical rigor of the programs. Physical Artifacts were collected to assess CP student quality, including reflective projects and foreign language portfolios among others. The last source of evidence, Participant-Observation, was not incorporated into the research design.

3. Among the class of 2014, all nine graduates from School A went to in-state public universities. Of the 15 graduates from School B two enrolled in an in-state, two-year state technical college; three went to out-of-state public universities; one to an in-state private denominational college, and the rest to in-state public universities.