Originally established in Switzerland in 1968 for internationally mobile students, the modern-day focus of the International Baccalaureate program is to prepare college-bound students with a global education.

A much-lauded advanced learning program, IB emphasizes self-inquiry, theory of knowledge, classroom dialogue, intercultural understanding and global citizenship.

Leaders of Sumner United for Responsible Government, a local arm of the tea party movement, say they support the overall idea of the academies but take issue with IB’s ties to the United Nations and promotion of multicultural themes they feel are contrary to American values.

“The bottom line of the whole program is to downplay individual national sovereignty,” said Jim Egan, a retired pilot and tea party activist who is a regular fixture at Sumner County Board of Education meetings.

“We’re talking about a new world order as it were, except that it’s a socialist world order,”