Imagine that a rigorous, evidence-based study finds that an educational intervention, undertaken across multiple years at no great cost to the public and involving tens of thousands of low-income, first-generation public high school students, had a substantial, positive impact on the students’ college attendance, persistence, and by implication life chances. One would hope, and might expect, that our nation’s stated commitment to educational excellence and equity would lead us to respond with considerable interest, follow-up research, and duplication. Below, we review a rigorous research study of a program that produced strong results for disadvantaged students. That the study hasn’t borne widespread interest beyond the location where the intervention occurred points to larger difficulties in translating research into practice – more on that later. First, the study itself and what its findings tell us.
The International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme (DP) in Chicago Public Schools
The International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme [sic] was introduced in Geneva in 1968 as a course of study for high school students whose parents were in the diplomatic corps and thus moved frequently. Currently, it is a full curriculum that includes six subject groups, a study of theories of knowledge, and high-level essay writing. The program is not merely academic; students must participate in the Creativity, Action and Service program and submit a 4,000-word independent research paper.[1] Students’ performance is externally and internally assessed. The IB organization now provides a curriculum for ages 3 – 19, and it has been embraced by schools around the world – not merely by the families of civil servants.[2]
In the United States, the IB program is associated with mostly white, affluent suburban kids. But in 1997, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) decided to introduce the IBDP (International Baccalaureate Diploma Programs) into 13 struggling high schools in some of its most deprived areas. These programs comprised only one or two classrooms; these were not whole school interventions.
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