Kerry,
I think "scathing" might be an overstatement on your part, but I will certainly own up to being direct.
International High School is way over the top in my community to the point of having taken on Politically Correct status. There is an enormous amount of pressure put on parents to enroll their bright children in IHS, because that is where bright children are supposed to enroll. It is beyond phony, and it is terribly self-serving. All four public high schools in my community now have IHS on campus. The high school my daughters attended was the last hold out.
As a consequence of IHS coming in the door, that last hold out high school had to give up its longstanding curriculum strategy and class scheduling scheme to accommodate the requirements of IHS, which literally killed the goose that was laying the golden eggs. The amazing thing was this: because of its four-period school day and its lack of IHS, that hold out high school � which is the smallest and the most economically deprived public high school, and the high school with the largest Hispanic immigrant population in the community � was cranking out significantly more Advanced Placement credits per student than any of the public high schools with an IHS option. My daughters traveled across town to attend that high school, as did several other very bright students. Some of those students went on to Harvard and other prestigious colleges and universities: one is now attending Harvard Law School after completing her undergraduate studies at Harvard � all without the benefit of an IHS education.
Why did that hold out high school work so well? Simply this: the truth of the matter is that IHS is a general population high school. It pretends to be elite, but it is not. There is no testing-in requirement going in, and there is no weeding-out process once you are in. The fact is: a surprisingly high percentage of IHS graduates do not earn the prized IB diploma or the somewhat-promised college credits. By comparison, the hold out high school my daughters attended very effectively funneled the very brightest students into a phantom Advanced Placement high school that did not exist anywhere on paper, but did very much exist in reality. The smart kids found each other, and they all took the same classes (more or less), and many of them earned a whole lot of college credits.
I will concede that an IHS graduate will likely be a disciplined student as a consequence of enduring the IHS workload, but some of those disciplined students will be burned out and forever done with school after IHS finishes with them. Many years ago, I knew and worked with a lot of young people during the while that they were enrolled in IHS, and I knew their parents, too. My opinions about IHS were formed during that time, and nothing since then has changed my mind (and a nephew of mine just graduated from an IHS last week).
Back when (and I am referring to a time 12 to 20+ years ago), I was very much bothered by the reputation IHS had for piling on homework, especially busywork. When my wife and I attended an IHS open house 12 years ago prior to deciding against IHS for our older daughter, I confronted one of the IHS teachers directly regarding this busywork issue by referring to one of the standard IHS assignments at the time that required students to draw (by hand!) and color (by hand!) a multitude of world maps. I asked how such a time-consuming busywork assignment could be justified in an era when most high school students are skilled in using sophisticated computer graphics, and the teacher just shrugged and responded that IHS considered the time-consuming hand labor to be worthwhile. I was not impressed by that response.
Anyway, that is a long time ago now. I can only hope that the map drawing and coloring is long gone.
The point is this: There are bright students, and then there are brilliant genius-level students, and sometimes that difference is extreme. Yes, I am an elitist regarding academic subjects � absolutely so, and with no apologies. The very brightest students should not be held back in any academic subjects by a general student population mix in their classrooms. However, though I am an elitist based on proven academic merit in academic subjects, I am not a separatist in general. My older daughter sang in high school choirs for two years, and my younger daughter took two years of wood shop and one year of metal shop � and she absolutely loved those shop classes!
My "NASA Academy of the Physical Sciences" would destroy all but the genius-level students. None but the very blessed few should even attempt its rigors, but those very blessed few need and deserve the option. Unless you are genius-level in mathematics and the physical sciences, or unless your child is, or unless your best friend and confidant is, you cannot possibly understand what it is like. My heart breaks for those very special young people, because many of them are just crushed and tortured by their unbearable circumstances. IHS does not reliably meet the needs of genius-level students, especially those who are exceptionally gifted and joyful in mathematics and the physical sciences.
As parents, our sacred trust is to know our own children, and to then effectively advocate for them in every way possible. We cannot and should not settle for the solution that everyone else says is the best solution, unless that solution is in fact the best solution for our own child. Nothing else but that matters.
I am done with high school. Thank God. My younger daughter graduated in 2007, and I was going to never look back. Then the local public schools superintendent made a decision that was simply unthinking regarding the very brightest students, and I came unglued. I could not help myself except to write my "NASA Academy of the Physical Sciences" proposal. It is my gift to your child if your child is a genius-level student, but the task to make it happen in reality is yours.
Steven A. Sylwester
