Shouldn't really be surprising anyone. When you place so much importance on scoring high on tests you train students that do well on tests. Does an ability to prepare and test well translate into general education? The point of a test is supposed to be a monitor of how well your education is coming along, but now the system is geared to have the cart in front of the horse. China has been having this problem in a much more advanced stage with so much importance placed on national exams. Aside from being a poor way to organize education for education's sake, it's probably not unrelated to the cheating epidemic in the exams. The test itself also ends up being the commanding factor in curriculum, I went to a highschool that used the IB system instead of AP, and we were advised not to take SAT subject exams in some subjects because the IB curriculum covered different topics, leaving us unprepared to take SAT tests. I wonder if this style of baccalaureate in testing education is ever going to be phased-out.
The thing is, now that MIT is saying it, (a few) more people might be willing to listen. I've worked with lots of students, preparing them to take the SAT and for the American collegiate experience and you're right to point out that China, among other Asian countries suffers from this to a great degree. However, given the volume of students and international students applying to U.S. universities and colleges and the entrenched position that ETS (what a clever racket, eh?) holds, I don't believe that this will change too much within the next 10 years. In the end, I think the real surprise (for me) is that there is such little outcry against education and its auxiliary services as big business and the effect that conducting education as business is having on people's lives. I've never even heard of the IB system. Do you feel like those classes were worth taking?
Can't answer for Zebs, but I did the program as well, and I found it to be overall helpful. Essentially you take college courses while in high school. It helped me learn how to manage my time, how to bullshit when I had to, how to deal with stress, and part of the program is writing a 25-ish page essay, which makes the ten page essay I'm writing right now feel like nothing. Also, while this isn't true of all schools, my IB credits transferred to my University of choice, meaning I don't have to take the annoying pre-req classes, and skip a year if I wanted to.