I am shocked-- SHOCKED!-- to find that cheating is going on here!

So apparently, to make sure we don't get shocked, let's just NOT LOOK.

One case accuses a teacher of filling in bubble sheets of her students who should have been taking state exams. Another says administrators called pupils into the office so they could have a second chance at questions they missed.

All told, more than 100 reports of standardized testing irregularities, including cheating, poured into the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in 2010 and 2011, according to documentation obtained by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Thirty-two of those were from the St. Louis area.

And yet, the Missouri education department does nothing on its own to seek out cases of test fraud, despite the availability of effective statistical tools that could weed out potential abuses. Of the $8.4 million the state spends to administer the Missouri Assessment Program, nothing is spent on test fraud detection services.

Failure to invest in the integrity of Missouri's test scores has continued even as schools face rising pressure — and in some cases, incentives — to improve under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. And it has continued in the face of test cheating scandals across the nation — from Atlanta to Washington to Philadelphia to Los Angeles.

Critics suggest it's simply easier for states to look the other way. "If you don't look, you don't find," said Bob Schaeffer, public education director for FairTest: National Center for Fair & Open Testing. "You are void of embarrassment by not asking tough questions."

Missouri education officials rely on a system of self-reporting that assumes teachers and administrators will come to the state when they know of possible abuse. Under this approach, even when allegations of testing irregularities are reported — as they were 41 times in 2011 — the state and school districts rarely engage in the kind of rigorous statistical review many say is needed.

The state has also dismantled a program due to funding reductions that had sent inspectors randomly into schools to ensure tests are administered properly.

State education officials say looking for red flags would add thousands of dollars to the testing contract at a time when the state has cut department funding. "There is a cost to that," said Sharon Hoge, an assistant commissioner at the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. "We have tried to rely on self reports in our districts in Missouri. I'm not telling you that means there are not things possibly that are going on that we don't know about."

Read the whole thing. It's fascinating.

I think our state legislators need to realize there's a cost to not checking on reports of cheating. And that is that... excuse me if this is obvious... schools and principals and teachers and students will cheat because there is so much riding on the outcome of these tests.

Cheating the students

So of course the Atlanta cheating scandal keeps unfolding. So far four employees in Atlanta have lost their jobs. Bunches more have been told to quit or be fired, as 178 received letters to this effect from the current superintendent. Eighty-two teachers and principals have admitted that they erased answers and altered answer sheets.

Look, the superintendent was seen as a miracle worker and won National Superintendent of the Year. The gains that Atlanta reported during the TEN YEARS it is presumed that cheating has gone on (basically since the start of No Child Left Behind) were astounding, and yet no one really dug into it until now? Please.

What really disgusts me is that you know that cheating has gone on in other places but so far, I have only heard about Chicago, Atlanta, and DC. And I love that Arne Duncan is shocked! SHOCKED! by the whole idea that high-stakes testing will lead to cheating.

Cheating and Chutzpah, part 7: Oh. Good. Golly.

Ladies and Gentlemen! I think we have winner in the category of Absolute Gall in Cheating. Big props to commenter Exurban Mom for bringing this to my attention.

Brace yourselves:

A high school secretary illegally changed grades in a school computer system to improve her daughter's class standing, according to criminal charges filed Thursday.

Caroline Maria McNeal of Huntingdon is accused of using the passwords of three co-workers without their knowledge to tamper with dozens of grades and test scores between May 2006 and July 2007 at Huntingdon Area High School in central Pennsylvania, the state attorney general's office said.

McNeal, 39, is alleged to have improved her daughter Brittany's grades and reduced those of two classmates to enhance Brittany's standing in the 2008 graduating class.

School officials corrected the grades before the students graduated, prosecutors said.

Attorney General Tom Corbett said the case involves "a serious violation of the public trust."

"Our citizens depend on people in public positions, including school employees, to protect the safety and security of these records and not use confidential information for their own benefit," Corbett said.

McNeal was charged with 29 counts of unlawful use of a computer and 29 counts of tampering with public records. Each count is a third-degree felony punishable by a maximum of seven years in prison and a $15,000 fine, said Nils Frederiksen, a spokesman for Corbett's office.

No telephone number was listed for Caroline McNeal. Brittany McNeal is not charged with any wrongdoing.

Jill Adams, the school district superintendent, said prosecutors have asked school officials not to comment publicly about the case.

"We would like to have it be finished, over and done," she said.

In all, McNeal is accused of altering nearly 200 scores and grades covering four school years.

The situation came to light in October 2007, when an employee of the high school guidance office discovered conflicting SAT scores for Brittany.

Scores provided directly by the College Board showed a cumulative score of 1370, while an unknown source had previously entered 1730, according to court papers.1

Further investigation revealed that the data had been entered from Caroline McNeal's computer starting more than a week before SAT scores for other students were entered.

Three other secretaries at the school told investigators they had shared their passwords with Caroline McNeal during vacations or other prolonged absences.

How many hands of people who know parents like this?

Of course, usually these people don't get the keys to actually do anything to interfere with the grades of their children. But I just want to say to people like these: "Ma'am, take a deep breath and step away from your child. They're not you, and you can't live through them."

Changing an SAT score from 1370 to 1730. Whew! Changing 200 grades!

You've got to feel for her poor daughter. But I especially feel for the other kids whose records she changed to help raise her daughter's standing. "Tampering" doesn't seem to cover it. I propose a new felony: Academic Assault.

And, furthermore, there's this:

Speaking of unethical people....

A suburban Atlanta principal who resigned during an investigation into cheating on students' standardized tests was arrested Friday and accused of altering public documents. The school's assistant principal also turned herself in to local police Thursday night in a case that the head of a state teacher's group described as rare. School officials allege that the two changed answers on fifth-grade standardized tests to improve scores and help their school meet federal achievement standards. Former Dekalb County principal James Berry was arrested at his home on charges of altering public documents, a felony. His assistant principal Doretha Alexander faces the same charges.

Berry, the former principal of Atherton Elementary, left the county jail Friday evening without commenting to reporters gathered outside. A jail official said his bond was $15,000. Alexander was released earlier Friday on $1,500 bond.

A state investigation released last week found that student scores on state math tests were altered at four schools in the state, including Atherton, in an effort to boost those schools' performance. Officials do not believe students were involved. Jeff Hubbard, president of the Georgia Association of Educators, said this is the first time he's heard of teachers or administrators being arrested for such offenses.

"This is one of the worst academic offenses an educator can do or be accused of because it messes with a child's future," Hubbard said.

An administrative probe into the matter by DeKalb County Schools revealed that Berry was involved in altering the tests, said district spokesman Dale Davis. He said the district is still investigating Alexander, who has been reassigned. Davis released a statement Friday saying the school district was surprised at the arrests and had not been notified beforehand. It was not immediately clear whether Berry or Alexander had a lawyer. DeKalb County Chief Assistant District Attorney Don Geary said he expects the investigation to be turned over to his office in the next few days so a decision can be made on formal charges. Berry resigned last week, while Alexander was reassigned by district officials. Messages left at each of their homes Friday were not immediately returned.

The arrests follow a state audit that "showed very clearly that someone had intentionally changed students' answers on those tests," said Kathleen Mathers, spokeswoman of the Governor's Office of Student Achievement. The resulting higher scores helped four schools meet standards and avoid sanctions under the federal No Child Left Behind law.

Schools that don't meet standards under the law must offer extra tutoring and allow parents to transfer their children to higher performing schools. The audit found the answer sheets of the altered tests had up to 40 erasures, compared with the average of two per student on other answer sheets. Most of the answers were changed to make them correct.

Tests from schools in three other systems are also under review.

Nice. Although this isn't the first time we have heard of instances like this, it IS the first time I heard of people being arrested.

Well, I'm sure it's all just a "mistake," or "misunderstanding" (sarcasm alert for those who didn't read my previous post). Who wants to bet that those terms will crop up somewhere in relation to this incident?

The cant of cheating and judging

(Editor's note: Commenters Kim and Cynthia swiftly identified the picture at the left as Diogenes weary after searching for an honest man. Kudos!)

You know, I am a vocabulary nut. My love affair with words is longstanding. Some words are just cool to say or read. "Lethargy!" "Antediluvian!" "Mesozoic!" "Obfuscate!" "Empiricism!" "Ontological!" "Eschatology!" "Disingenuous!" All just fascinating words!

Another word I like is "cant." For such a short little word, cant has several meanings. Three of them occurred to me as I meditated further on cheating and American society.

One meaning of cant is a "slant" or "slope." Another meaning of cant is "the particular language or vocabulary of a certain group or used in a certain field of study." A third meaning of cant is "insincere talk about religion or morals." When we have talked about cheating and plagiarism, all three of these definitions of cant have been demonstrated.

My previous posts (here, and here, and here) about grading and plagiarism have generated some commentary in the Edusphere, which is a very good thing, regardless of your beliefs about these two issues. Some of that commentary has been in my comments section, and some has been on other's blogs. All cool! Everyone has certainly had their own slant or bias or agenda, including me. That suggested the first definition of "cant." But I find the consideration of the second and third definitions of "cant" in all of these discussions most fascinating. Some of the words that have been utilized in the cant of this discussion have included "ethics," "right," "wrong," "judgment," "punishment," mistake," "responsibility," "cheating," "theft," "punitive," "behavior," "rants," and "tolerance." I would like to meditate upon some of these words, and their meanings and contexts within this discussion of academic honesty, with a brief side-trip to grading policy, but focusing primarily on the use of particular vocabulary and upon morality.

Some would say that our society does tolerate cheating and plagiarism. Perhaps I understand the word "tolerate" differently than others, but to me, "tolerate" has an implication of acceptance. I find this concept -- um, ha-ha-- unacceptable. (Ba-doom ching!)

There are many problems I see with tolerating plagiarism, a behavior which I believe prevents our students from learning as surely as being unable to read does. But there are two separate questions being muddled together here.

From its inception, this discussion has had two very distinct parts: there is an ETHICAL part (Is cheating acceptable? If not--apparently a big IF-- what is our proper response to discourage such behavior?) and there is an ASSESSMENT part (what factors should be counted in grades?), which I think the previous comments have already addressed thoroughly if not completely satisfactorily. But right now let's deal with ethics, which is that field of philosophy which deals with determining right and wrong in the broadest application (a subfield known as metaethics,) and how to create standards of ethical behavior (a subfield known as normative ethics), and then specifically how to apply those standards to specific fields such as abortion, or animal rights, or even education (a subfield known as applied ethics).

Ethically, I believe that there is no such thing as a "tolerable" amount of cheating or lying. I often hear as a defense from students and parents that,

"Everyone does it." Or, "Everyone cheats."

Many of us refuse to get sidetracked or deign to respond to the obvious untruth of that statement, but I wonder if we should be so unconcerned as to let it pass unchallenged? Let me just point out that the addition of one brief adjective phrase to that statement WOULD actually make it true:

"Everyone who is unethical cheats."

Further, I would also posit a further statement, using my understanding of the word "tolerate" as defined above:

"Everyone who tolerates cheating is unethical."

These are harsh words, yes. They are definitely judgmental words. But ethics and morality is about judgment. Period. And see the third definition of "cant" again. Now judging right and wrong behavior is certainly not without controversy-- to quote part of one of my favorite lines of one of my favorite movies, "Ever heard of Plato? Aristotle? Socrates?" Not to mention Diogenes, Thomas Aquinas, Immanuel Kant, Thomas Hobbes, and Friedrich Nietzche, the king of ethical relativism, who would oppose my two statements above and claim that morals and ethics are completely individual constructs-- which in my mind is a way of saying that whatever one can get away with, one can claim is good.

That's basically the starting position of those who claim that "Everyone does it." Besides that mind-whirring brief spin into ethical philosophy, I also believe that people who say such things are disingenuous at best. Once one posits that some cheating is acceptable or some lying is acceptable, where exactly does one draw the line? They are claiming that cheating is acceptable, but we all know that that applies only if THEY are not the ones being harmed by being themselves cheated.

In fact these people are usually the first ones to start screaming if they believe that something that happens to them is "Not fair!" It is the rare person indeed who cheats AND accepts that they will be cheated as well. I don't think that Nietzsche himself would have been so accepting.

But besides that, very seriously, my stance is that cheating and stealing actually DOES harm the person doing the cheating or stealing or plagiarizing. I will explain this now.

On the behavior side in the specific example of education, how does anyone expect students to learn and improve if they do not do their own work, and if they do not understand that there are consequences for choosing not to learn by stealing someone else's work? Choosing not to learn is a behavior, admittedly, but one which I would like to think we would actually seek to discourage in students. Choosing not to learn certainly has severe consequences for society as a whole. (And back to the grading and teaching part of this discussion, for those who say we should not judge-- whether we like it or not, every assessment is a judgment, in the broadest sense of the word.) We teachers (and parents, and adults) are in the business of informing, and of judging. "Informing" can here mean "providing knowledge," "shaping," and "guiding." Here I use the term "judging" in the evaluative sense of the word. When adults abdicate their very real responsibility to judge and to correct, we leave our students adrift and unable to determine how to help themselves and how to discipline themselves.

I have heard some say that we should understand that "everyone makes mistakes." True enough. But a mistake is something a reasonable and sane person tries to avoid. Mistakes are rooted in inattention, not deliberation.

Plagiarism and cheating are not mistakes but deliberate acts. Unless what one means by "mistake" is "what I call a bad action when I get caught, hopefully to deflect blame." Perhaps the mistake is in the getting caught. Hmmm. Depressingly cynical and nihilistic.

But let's pretend that we were to classify plagiarism or cheating as a "mistake." Just because something IS a mistake, doesn't mean there are not consequences for that mistake. Mistakes do not exist in a vacuum. A pitot tube in an Airbus aircraft is not replaced when it has been recommended-- serious consequences may have occurred due to that mistake. A pilot mistakenly misreads the altimeter-- there can be serious consequences for that mistake. A driver takes her eyes off the road to answer her cell phone as she is passing a bicyclist-- there can be serious consequences for that mistake. An overworked federal inspector misses evidence of salmonella in one of the hundreds of peanut processing plants he is charged to inspect-- there are consequences for that mistake.

We are deluding ourselves if we think the band-aid word of "mistake" should mean that there is no consequences or no responsibility. This touches upon "cant" in both its second and third meanings which I listed at the start of this post.

There are plenty of things in this world that are mistakes. But deliberately choosing to steal someone else's ideas --or possessions-- is not a "mistake." It is not an "accident." It is a deliberate choice which harms not only the person whose ideas were stolen, but also, in the case of academic plagiarism, harms the students who have plagiarized, because they have also deliberately chosen not to learn the information or skill that the plagiarized assignment was supposed to demonstrate. Cheaters hurt themselves. And how can anyone who cares about students stand idly by while they hurt themselves or deny themselves an education?

Now let's move away from plagiarism and cheating for a moment, and to a general discussion of the cant of our discussion about grading. I am also troubled by anyone, on either side of the grading debate, who views grades as punishment. One thing I think we all should be able to agree about is that grades should be assessments, and it is obvious that one of the goals of those who seek to refine grading systems is that they want to make grades less subjective and more objective-- admirable on the surface, if not a bit unrealistic, but let's leave that aside. I am mightily troubled by students who don't earn the grade they "wanted" to then claim that they are being "punished." Talk about a subjective response! THEY are not being punished-- their WORK and their UNDERSTANDING are being assessed -- and here's the kicker--so that improvement can be made.

For instance, student A performs at an acceptable level throughout the semester. A's work is not outstanding, but it is acceptable, although A is capable of outstanding work. When the teacher conferences with A about A's demonstrated performance periodically, the teacher suggests various strategies and skills that the student could avail herself of in order to raise her mastery of the information/skill-- and therefore, her assessed grade. Student A does none of these things-- but at the end of the semester claims that she is being punished by not being "given" an outstanding mark. The words in quotation marks are all a part of the cant that is used to imply that grades are not the result of assessment but are merely punishments generated external to any actions or behaviors on the part of the student.

I see this far too much, sadly. I unfortunately hear a lot of this same kind of reasoning of those who think that any time a student doesn't get the grade they "want," they are being "punished." Punishment in this instance is of course used in an extremely pejorative sense. This kind of displacement of responsibility serves no one in our society, but most especially it does a disservice to our students. In this line of reasoning, grades are "given" to them or they "happen," rather than being an assessment that has been earned and produced and demonstrated by the students themselves.

Students, parents, and administrators all too often focus on the "grade" but ignore the learning --or lack thereof --that that grade is meant to assess, and forget that the purpose of that assessment is to provide the opportunity to improve learning and therefore performance and skill level-- oh, and, correspondingly, of the grade. They are now abdicating their responsibility in the learning process-- and what a horrible idea to implant in our students' minds! Just like most of Western society, there is a logical consequence to this line of faulty reasoning--those who believe this don't want honesty, they want manipulation. They don't want to improve their understanding or skill acquisition, they simply want an empty credential. Students "want" grades, but earning them? Far more difficult. Students "want" to graduate, but earning that? Far more difficult, as well. Let's be honest: the current discussion about drop-out rates in American schools usually talks about wanting everyone --EVERYONE-- to graduate, which is a far more simplistic goal than expecting that everyone who graduates should meet certain standards of knowledge. These are two far, far different things-- there's a canyon of difference between them. Could it be that exactly this kind of thinking is a very large part of the current crisis in American education regarding achievement and assessment and opportunity?

I am appalled some of this same kind of reasoning from education professionals who advocate changing the grading system so that refusal to complete assessments, or refusing to do them in a timely manner, or refusing to do one's own work, is thought of as an anomaly that just somehow "happens."

And although the discussion of grading per se has nothing to do with this point, let's return to an ethical consideration of what to do when confronted by these kinds of behavior. I wish to address the issue of age of accountability or maturity in determining consequences-- ANY consequences!-- for misbehavior. Let's consider character education, a trendy term that is batted around in far too cavalier a manner, in my opinion.

Granted, our students are --usually-- not adults (my high school, and most everyone's, does have a population of those who have reached legal majority, but that is another problem). But they are not infants, either, and they do need to take responsibility for their deliberate actions. This needs to be a gradual process beginning in their earliest years, even before they come to school. By the time someone is in middle school, they need to understand that there are some choices they have, that they are responsible for those choices. This is an empowering concept, not a punitive one!!!! It can, unfortunately, also lead to negative consequences when they choose unwisely. But the purpose of those consequences is to help the child make the better choice the next time they have the opportunity. This is also not "punishment." This is the way in which one learns to become a upright human being and citizen.

We do not "punish" students as we "punish" adults. Adults who cheat and steal (if we agree that we should not tolerate this behavior in the first place) receive consequences of fines, legal adjudications, and possibly jail time. And I wonder how many of those adults that do get caught cheating and stealing started out with cheating and stealing in school, and then being tacitly encouraged to roll the dice to try it again-- on the chance that a) they won't be caught most of the time (probably true, but irrelevant to our thought experiment here) and b) that they would receive no consequence to deter them from such self-destructive behavior?



By the way, since we are talking about grading, extra credit for anyone who takes the trouble to find out what the meaning is of the picture at the top of the post, and its application to our discussion. I'll post a congratulatory note identifying you in a revision to this post at the top, even!

The Cheating Culture, part III

Apparently, the best we can take from this story is that eventually even people who are really good at cheating get caught:

An Ohio school district says it uncovered a cheating scheme so pervasive that it had to cancel graduation ceremonies for its 60 seniors — but will still mail their diplomas. A senior at Centerburg High School accessed teachers' computers, found tests, printed them and distributed them to classmates, administrators said. Graduation was canceled because so many seniors either cheated or knew about the cheating but failed to report it, said officials of the Centerburg School District.

Superintendent Dorothy Holden said the district had to take a stand and let students know that cheating can't be tolerated.
"I am alarmed that our kids can think that in society it's OK to cheat, it's a big prank, it's OK to turn away and not be a whistle-blower, not come forth," Holden said. The district says it has identified a student who apparently accessed shared file folders on teachers' computers.

Officials believe the cheating involved at least five tests in a senior World Studies class dating to early January. One of the tests quizzed students on Aztec Indian history. Teachers had suspicions about some higher-than-expected grades during the semester, Holden said. The cheating unraveled when a student discovered a congratulatory note to the perpetrator on a school computer Tuesday and gave it to Principal John Morgan. Administrators learned Friday that the cheating plot may have involved underclassmen, as well.

Holden said so many students are involved that it was impossible "to separate the wheat from the chaff" in terms of deciding who could graduate. Instead, all students will be mailed their diplomas. "We're not going to put that type of honor out there knowing that many of you are walking through there and you cheated, you lied, you denied," Holden said.

Some parents angry about the cancellation are organizing an unofficial graduation ceremony. Jeanette Lamb, whose son is a senior at the school, asked the Centerburg School Board to reconsider its decision to cancel graduation. The board declined.
"At that point I did tell them that commencement would continue, it will be at the park, I will put it together and their presence wasn't welcome," Lamb told WTVN radio in Columbus. Lamb said parents and members of the community have offered help.
Centerburg High, with about 400 students, is one of the state's top schools, with an "excellent" academic rating last year, according to the state Department of Education.

Last year, the school had a 99 percent graduation rate, compared to a statewide rate of 87 percent. Some students admit they cheated; others said they knew of the cheating but didn't participate; and others said they had the tests but didn't use them, Holden said.

One student who used the test still failed.

I can't tell you how many times I have gotten the "but everybody does it," shrug-your-shoulders response from parents when I have contacted them to inform them of their child's cheating on an assignment or quiz. I even got that response from an administrator once-- who then later tried to act so stunned when a teacher candidate had someone hack into the system and stole interview questions. In this story, I particularly like the student who STILL FAILED. For the past few years, I have given out actual test questions as the study guide for many of my tests-- and still have kids who can't be bothered to look up the answers. Then they ask why I don't curve my results.

You can't win.

But in a culture which celebrates people who get away with moral lapses, how can we be shocked when our students engage in the same behavior?

A Question About Grades and Plagiarism

So I have a question: What policy does your school district have regarding plagiarism and grades? According to Ken O'Connor, students grades should not be impacted by cheating. Or by failure to meet deadlines, either, apparently, since in the "real world" (imagine fingers making little quotation marks as the presenter is saying it) everyone can negotiate deadlines (and if this is so, can I renegotiate the end of my contracted school year to yesterday?)

Let me know what you think.

Winners NEVER cheat (or at least they never get caught)

Sadly, for those of us who work with kids, this really isn't a surprise.

In the past year, 30 percent of U.S. high school students have stolen from a store and 64 percent have cheated on a test, according to a new, large-scale survey suggesting that Americans are too apathetic about ethical standards. Educators reacting to the findings questioned any suggestion that today's young people are less honest than previous generations, but several agreed that intensified pressures are prompting many students to cut corners.

"The competition is greater, the pressures on kids have increased dramatically," said Mel Riddle of the National Association of Secondary School Principals. "They have opportunities their predecessors didn't have (to cheat). The temptation is greater."

The Josephson Institute, a Los Angeles-based ethics institute, surveyed 29,760 students at 100 randomly selected high schools nationwide, both public and private. All students in the selected schools were given the survey in class; their anonymity was assured.

Michael Josephson, the institute's founder and president, said he was most dismayed by the findings about theft. The survey found that 35 percent of boys and 26 percent of girls — 30 percent overall — acknowledged stealing from a store within the past year. One-fifth said they stole something from a friend; 23 percent said they stole something from a parent or other relative. "What is the social cost of that — not to mention the implication for the next generation of mortgage brokers?" Josephson remarked in an interview. "In a society drenched with cynicism, young people can look at it and say 'Why shouldn't we? Everyone else does it.'"

Other findings from the survey:

_Cheating in school is rampant and getting worse. Sixty-four percent of students cheated on a test in the past year and 38 percent did so two or more times, up from 60 percent and 35 percent in a 2006 survey.

_Thirty-six percent said they used the Internet to plagiarize an assignment, up from 33 percent in 2004.

_Forty-two percent said they sometimes lie to save money — 49 percent of the boys and 36 percent of the girls.

Despite such responses, 93 percent of the students said they were satisfied with their personal ethics and character, and 77 percent affirmed that "when it comes to doing what is right, I am better than most people I know."

Nijmie Dzurinko, executive director of the Philadelphia Student Union, said the findings were not at all reflective of the inner-city students she works with as an advocate for better curriculum and school funding. "A lot of people like to blame society's problems on young people, without recognizing that young people aren't making the decisions about what's happening in society," said Dzurinko, 32. "They're very easy to scapegoat."

Peter Anderson, principal of Andover High School in Andover, Mass., said he and his colleagues had detected very little cheating on tests or Internet-based plagiarism. He has, however, noticed an uptick in students sharing homework in unauthorized ways. "This generation is leading incredibly busy lives — involved in athletics, clubs, so many with part-time jobs, and — for seniors — an incredibly demanding and anxiety-producing college search," he offered as an explanation.

Riddle, who for four decades was a high school teacher and principal in northern Virginia, agreed that more pressure could lead to more cheating, yet spoke in defense of today's students. "I would take these students over other generations," he said. "I found them to be more responsive, more rewarding to work with, more appreciative of support that adults give them. We have to create situations where it's easy for kids to do the right things," he added. "We need to create classrooms where learning takes on more importance than having the right answer."

On Long Island, an alliance of school superintendents and college presidents recently embarked on a campaign to draw attention to academic integrity problems and to crack down on plagiarism and cheating. Roberta Gerold, superintendent of the Middle Country School District and a leader of the campaign, said parents and school officials need to be more diligent — for example, emphasizing to students the distinctions between original and borrowed work.

"You can reinforce the character trait of integrity," she said. "We overload kids these days, and they look for ways to survive. ... It's a flaw in our system that whatever we are doing as educators allows this to continue."

Josephson contended that most Americans are too blase about ethical shortcomings among young people and in society at large. "Adults are not taking this very seriously," he said. "The schools are not doing even the most moderate thing. ... They don't want to know. There's a pervasive apathy." Josephson also addressed the argument that today's youth are no less honest than their predecessors.

"In the end, the question is not whether things are worse, but whether they are bad enough to mobilize concern and concerted action," he said.

"What we need to learn from these survey results is that our moral infrastructure is unsound and in serious need of repair. This is not a time to lament and whine but to take thoughtful, positive actions."

Although even St. Augustine complained about the behavior and morality of his students in his Confessions, the need to reinforce moral behavior is more pressing than ever in a world in which torture is justified, in which lying and obscuring the truth is considered being smart and in which being honest when not forced to be is considered to be foolish and naive. Witness Marion Jones asking President Bush for a pardon, as just a small example.

Cheating and stealing are all too easy today, and making excuses based upon how busy young people are is, to put it bluntly, a crock of crap.

My most frustrating experiences as a teacher have been when parents have justified or even been complicit in encouraging their children to avail themselves of these kind of morally indefensible practices. Thankfully, it hasn't happened very often. Most parents have reacted very supportively when contacted about their children's occasional unethical choices.

But schools cannot teach morality and character development alone, especially in a world in which every instructional moment is often focused on passing a standardized test at the end of the year. However, schools can and should practice absolute vigilance and enforce no tolerance for these kinds of behaviors, regardless of what reaction parents have. If we want our students to develop backbones, we need to grow them first for ourselves.

Standing up for what is right is never expedient.

And yet-- I still believe it's wrong.

Depressing.

I have had numerous parents tell me that "everyone does it" and that if I can't give consequences to every kid who cheats, then I shouldn't punish their kid. The words "character," "honesty," and the like are laughed off as at best a quaint notion from bygone days.

In one previous incident, I watched a girl turn her paper so that the boy next to her could copy freely without straining his neck, poor thing. When I told her she got a zero too, she incredulously claimed that she hadn't been cheating. I held my ground with her and with her daddy, and fortunately was backed up by administration.

But the saddest part is that kids who don't bother to learn the material really cheat only themselves. Then they wonder why they struggle.

Don't be hatin' if you're perpetratin'.

"The one who cannot restrain their anger will wish undone, what their temper and irritation prompted them to do.”-- Horace

Every year you get at least one. A parent or, even better, a set of parents, who are on a teacher like stink on a skunk any time the teacher says anything at all to their Beloved Offspring. Personally, I approach things from the other side-- if one of my kids' teachers has to say something to my kids, I will be quick to spring to action, alright-- to reinforce my disapproval of my kids' action which drew said ire. But que sera, sera-- it takes all kinds of parents to really force a kid to seek therapy later in life.

But this set of parents were not your garden-variety ki-yipers. They would sound perfectly reasonable-- until you actually prevented their kid from doing whatever she wanted to do. Then suddenly, the tone on the phone would turn subarctic and you would be informed that they "really don't appreciate you doing/ saying/ expecting/ refusing permission" to Pweshus, and then they would tell you what you were going to do: "I expect you to take that work/ I expect you to stay after school every day in case Pweshus decides she needs help/ I expect you to email me any time you mark an answer wrong on her homework/ I expect you not to ask her to participate in class/ I expect you to never take any consequences if her phone goes off in class, because it's probably me calling, but even if it's not, we've instructed Pweshus to leave her phone on" blahblahblahblah.

I would always just express my regret that they felt that way and reiterate that I was going to follow my policy. They would continually push, I would pleasantly refuse to engage and visualize martial arts kata in my head to keep from getting annoyed.

They would usually bid me a regal good-bye-- and immediately call the principal and scream at him over what a complete tyrant/idiot/harpy I am. Last month, after we were having one of these cheery little confabs, the mother called the principal and loudly complained that it was obvious I was taking notes during our conversation, and that therefore I must have some nefarious ulterior (pronounced "inferior") motive. Now, if you're hung around here for a while, you will know that I recommend keeping notes of conversations with parents as a bit of posterior coverage which has stood me in good stead numerous times in my career. So yep, guilty. The principal thought that this complaint was particularly hilarious-- after his ear stopped smoking.

And apparently these people were more polite to me than to anyone else who came into even casual contact with Pweshus. The poor principal has been getting daily doses of invective drilled through his eardrum for months now. Always, always, there were excuses as to why Pweshus couldn't do her homework/come to school on time/come for tutoring/get off her damn cellphone/stay awake/manage to be in school any time there was a test.

So during a few tirades, a few kernels of information dropped out that made us wonder: why so paranoid about me taking notes when asking about why Pweshus couldn't get to school on time? Why is it Pweshus never took the bus if her parents couldn't get her here? After all, her address was fifteen minutes' walk away from school.

So some discreet investigation was done, and-- guess what? Pweshus doen't live in our school district-- not even close. No one would have probably ever known if her parents hadn't shown their asses so much. If they'd just been reasonable, no one would have ever realized that two plus two equals several thousand dollars in lost tuition payments charged to non-resident students.

So what is the moral to this story? Don't be hatin' if you're perpetratin'.