"The International Baccalaureate aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect."

International Baccalaureate Mission Statement

Thomas Edison High School offers two levels of International Baccalaureate classes: the Middle Years Program (MYP) and the Diploma Program (DP).

What is the IB Middle Years Program?
The IB Middle Years Program, for students aged 11 to 16, provides a framework of academic challenge that encourages students to embrace and understand the connections between traditional subjects and the real world, and become critical and reflective thinkers. All Edison ninth and tenth graders participate in the IB Middle Year Program.

The MYP Curriculum
The program consists of eight subject groups integrated through six global contexts that provide a framework for learning within and across the subjects. Students are required to study language and literature, language acquisition (of an an additional language), individuals and societies, sciences, mathematics, and one of more of the following: arts, 
physical and health education, and design. In the final year of the program, students also engage in a personal project, which allows them to demonstrate the understandings and skills they have developed throughout the program in a project of their own creation.

What is the IB Diploma Programme?
The IB Diploma is recognized as a superior education, preparing you to do rigorous academic work and succeed at post-secondary institutions around the world.  The program encourages you to think from an international perspective while first developing an understanding of your own cultural and national identity.  You will learn a second language and develop the skills to live and work with others internationally – essential for the life in the 21st century.  The emphasis on interdisciplinary learning requires that students study courses across six disciplines.  The Program includes six IB subjects and examinations, 150 hours of CAS (Creativity, Action, Service), the Theory of Knowledge course, and a 4,000-word independent Extended Essay.

The Diploma Program Curriculum
The Diploma Programme is a two-year, full-time programme.  Courses include English, world languages, social studies, the experimental sciences, mathematics, and art.  
In each examination, the student is graded on a scale of 1 (minimum) to 7 (maximum).  The award of the diploma requires students to meet defined standards and conditions.
These include a minimum total of 24 points and the satisfactory completion of three compulsory core components: 1) theory of knowledge (TOK); 2) extended essay; and 3)
creativity, action, service (CAS). A student who does not satisfy the requirements of the full Diploma Programme, or who has elected to take fewer than six subjects, is awarded a certificate for the examinations completed. Students who complete more than six subjects receive an extra certificate for
the additional subject(s).