CHEATING

High School Students Found Cheating!

A recent report stated that 30 percent of high school students plagiarized term papers. To respond, schools are spending from limited funds to buy software to check papers against known sources to determine if the work is original or stolen. There are several issues with this high tech form of cheating.
First, cheating is a reflection of the work ethic chosen by students and supported by their parents. Students cheat because they believe and in many cases so do the parents, that homework is a waste of time. So, they copy from other students, steal work from the Internet or pay someone to complete the assignments for them. Some parents may actually defend this behavior as “enterprising.”
The debate over homework is never ending. Is there too much or not enough? What quality is the homework assignment as a part of the overall coursework? Is it just busy work?
Parents think their child is doing too much; teachers feel hamstrung by the limits imposed by school boards on the amount of homework that can be assigned. One group, standing against homework, even asserted that too much homework is limiting time for reading! Meanwhile, standardized tests suggest that only about 30 percent of the students are above proficient in reading and math. Both of those subjects lend themselves well to homework assignments.
If school standards are lowered, the students’ efforts will be lowered as well. If you want to deter cheating, the expectations for excellence need to be increased. Educators need to take a stand against the emotional arguments against learning that includes homework assignments. Compromises that don’t reflect real world discipline ends up with students who can’t handle college curricula or cheat their way through earning mediocre grades.
Second, the K to 16 US educational system needs to set a tone that leaning is a lifelong commitment and not just through commencement. As many of you know, commencement means beginning, not the end.
If you consider that people now live to be at least 80 years old and must work until 70, formal education occupies a very short time frame of the human life span. At graduation from high school, the student has spent less than 10 percent of all hours since birth in the classroom. Full-time jobs consume 25 to 30 percent of all hours per year. For most young people that is a stark “wake-up” call and one that many choose not to make, instead opting for the parent’s basement.
There are no easy solutions to the problems facing education. Cheating has always been part of the fabric of education and it is not likely to end any time soon. The reaction to cheating should not be to buy expensive software to monitor papers but instead increasing the standards of excellence.
Educators should not compromise on high expectations or be bullied by parents who don’t understand what it takes to be competitive in the global economy. Educators need to bring back consequences in the classroom and hold students accountable for their actions or lack of actions. The classroom should teach responsibility, respect and self-esteem. Once this message is received by students, cheating becomes a self-regulated stance against irresponsible behavior.

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