Robbinsdale Cooper Finding Success With International Baccalaureate

Ninety-three percent of the students who were candidates for an International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma this school year received them.

That's 14 of 15 students, according to Tia Clasen, marketing and communications program director for the .

That's compared to an 80 percent average pass rate worldwide.

The "IB curriculum spans all the major disciplines and offers a blend of courses to ensure that students receive a comprehensive liberal arts education," according to the IB Minnesota Website. The program also aims to "foster understanding among young people around the world."

To be eligible for an IB Diploma, a student must "earn a comprehensive score of 24, which ... is earned over two years," according to a news release from Clasen. "Performance in each subject is graded on a scale of 1 point (minimum) to 7 points (maximum)."

Forty-nine students received 6s or 7s this year, Clasen said. "The percentage of students earning points of 4 or higher in 2010-11 increased nearly 2 percentage points from last year, and the number of students earning 6s and 7s increased 6.9 percentage points."

Robbinsdale administers an IB Middle Years Programme (IBMYP) through 10th grade, and the Diploma Programme for juniors and seniors.

Holly Lewis, IB Diploma Programme coordinator at Cooper said district officials are striving to help more students succeed.

“We are beginning to teach essay-writing skills earlier in a student’s junior year in preparation for the writing of the extended essay," Lewis said. "This part of the IB assessment builds skill in critical thinking and analysis of different perspectives.  This type of writing is very common in college.”

Students in the IB Diploma Programme take written tests that are scored by people across the world. This year, "Cooper students had history exams on the Cold War which were scored by examiners in Moscow, and physics exams scored by examiners in the Fiji Islands," Clasen said.

The district's Middle Years Programme was approved in 2004. In 2008, as part of an IB requirement, the program was evaluated.

"It was at that time that staff started talking about implementing school-wide IBMYP, instead of just an 'honors' program—although we wanted to, and have, kept the honors track of IBMYP," Clasen said. "The school-wide model was implemented at Robbinsdale Middle School in 2008; that first group of sixth-graders will be freshmen at Cooper this coming school year."

So this fall, for the first time, the entire freshman class will be enrolled in IB courses. District officials said the program "will help develop the intellectual, personal, emotional and social skills needed to live, learn and work in a rapidly globalizing world."

Students will be able to opt in or out of the IB Diploma Programme in grades 11 and 12.