<http://www.valdostadailytimes.com/> SCLC opposes program at Valdosta High
*Johnna Pinholster* The Valdosta Daily Times VALDOSTA September 23, 2008 11:33 pm — The International Baccalaureate (IB) program is touted as promoting cultural understanding while providing a rigorous academic setting. Valdosta High School is currently working toward installing the program at the school and implementing it by the start of the next school year. While the school waits on final approval from IB, there are some in the community that feel VHS and the Valdosta City School System are using the program to avoid larger problems by focusing on smaller issues. The problems within the system are no different than what many schools across the nation are addressing, said Dr. Mark George, education chair of the Lowndes/Valdosta chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The SCLC has been examining the state of the city school system for more than a year. During public forums and before members of the Valdosta Board of Education, members of the SCLC's Education Committee presented their findings in an effort to bring awareness to what they feel are issues within the system. While George does not believe opposition to the IB program will prevent it from being implemented at VHS, he believes the opposition does bring to light the larger issues affecting the local education system. "This school system, in our estimation, historically and in 2008 does not abide by IB principles, particularly in terms of cultural respect and openness," George said. The program is cited as promoting respect for other countries and their social, cultural and religious ideologies and to understand and respect differences within the global community. The program was originally started for ambassadors' children. "To all of a sudden come up with a program that values diversity and cross-cultural understanding, when we don't even have that in this community, is disingenuous," George said. The SCLC wants to know how this program will be different from the other programs currently offered to upper learning level students, he said. While the SCLC's initial focus was not on the IB program, the organization feels that if the program is started at VHS it will only create more disparities within the system, George said. "If you look at the history of every elite program — AP, honors, gifted — it's clear that it serves the white kids disproportionately," George said. "So there's this long history of those programs not being available to students of color, demographically and statistically." During the 2007-08 school year, George said that there were 259 black students (42.3 percent of the system's total gifted population), compared to 353 white students (57.7 percent of the system's total gifted population) taking gifted education classes in the city school system. The SCLC feels like the IB program will only benefit a small group of students who are already excelling at VHS, not the hundreds of students who are lagging behind and falling "through the cracks." "It seems to me that the priorities are a little skewed, especially when the graduation rate for students in the upper levels is higher than the state average," George said. During the 2006-07 academic year, the black student population graduated at a rate of 49.7 percent while white students graduated at a rate of 77.9 percent, George said. In the past, the SCLC has presented requests to help facilitate tutorial and remedial programs the school would fund to improve the graduation rate of under-performing students. The board has not been responsive to these requests, George said. For fiscal year 2009, a total of $136,000 has already been budgeted in the general fund for the IB program. If implemented, the program will begin during a student's junior year. Students in the ninth and 10th grades at VHS are already preparing for the possibility of learning in an IB setting by taking classes that will prepare them for the upper level work. Superintendent Dr. Bill Cason has said on several occasions that the IB program will benefit any student who is willing to work toward achieving an IB diploma. Candidates for the IB program must take all honors-level courses in the ninth grade. Like the AP, honors and gifted programs, students within the system may not know that they can refer themselves for the programs and not wait to be appointed by school officials, George said. "We have said repeatedly that this is not blaming the system," George said. "But we have a system that clearly, like many across the county, is not working for all cultural ethnic groups." The system has also yet to address minority hiring issues that were outlined in a Federal Desegregation Consent Order issued more than 30 years ago, he said. In 1968, a group of black parents in Lowndes County filed a discrimination complaint against the school systems in both the county and the city with the U.S. Department of Justice. Parents were upset that the school systems had not complied with 1954's Brown v. Board of Education ruling. To keep federal funding, the systems were forced to integrate the schools as ordered, although some 14 years after the fact. They were also ordered to have teaching and administrative populations representative of the ethnic diversity of the student body. At this time, George said the city school system has yet to comply with the desegregation order regarding minority hiring. At Monday's Valdosta Board of Education meeting, board members said they would present the SCLC with written responses to its concerns about the system by today. The IB program is found in nearly 1,000 schools across the nation. The application for the IB program was finished in June, and the school was scheduled to have representatives from the program visit the campus earlier this week. The system will know in March if VHS has been approved for the program. Classes will start in 2009. Information compiled by the SCLC regarding the school system can be found at www.winnersville.net/education.htm Copyright (c) 1999-2008 cnhi, inc. -- "Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their condition. 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