A common complaint about IB programs is that they involve a lot of busy work - coloring maps, projects that aren’t that difficult, math that isn’t challenging. Sometimes, it is quantity over quality, but the IB method is based on repeating an activity until it is learned. Some of it is very good training, like writing and rewriting essays. My daughter was in an IB middle school program, and one project they did involved researching a person and making a booth with all kinds of displays about the person - costume, books, inventions. It was an amazing amount of busy work, some questionable grading points like did the display have a tablecloth, but still one of the best projects she ever did. I enjoyed the presentation very much although some kids a very minimal amount of work while others put a lot of time into it. Still, if they didn’t have a tablecloth…
I don’t know why you’d think any teacher would know everything. Yes, they sometimes have to look stuff up too. You won’t find better teachers in city schools. Depending how states fund their schools, usually the city schools are not the best with the most educated teachers, but the poorest trying to educate a lot of children on a small budget. In my area, it is the suburban schools with teachers with masters and even some PhD’s (which doesn’t make them the best teachers either) as the suburban districts can afford to pay more, have smaller class sizes, more resources; real estate taxes fund school districts, so the wealthier areas have bigger budgets around here.