A
Further Word on Cheating
in American Schools
Because student cheating is such a national problem, National Public Radio's Talk of The Nation focused on this problem with an hour-long panel of experts and call-in guests. The statistics these experts offered were alarming.
They stated that cheating has gone up by 75% among high school students and two-thirds of parents say that cheating isn't really so bad: "All students do it."
A self-deceived student caller stated boldly: "I was in honors classes in high school because I wanted to get into the best schools, and all of us in those classes cheated; we needed the grades to get into good schools. We were good, moral students; we weren't like unethical people or anything, we just needed to get into good universities, and we had to cheat."
What is it about society that allows this student to boldly assert that they, the cheating students in honors courses, were honest and ethical students? Was it the urgency of their need to get into a good university? Should we blame the universities for having varying reputations and favorableness?
When a student or anyone else puts his or her needs above everyone else, that student will perceive himself in a moral light he or she does not really possess. This distorted perception does not stop there; it continues throughout that person's life.
In Silicon Valley today, there is theft of intellectual property, and individuals are being sent to prison, deported, and brought to disgrace. But these are, no doubt, those same individuals who have cheated in school and were able to live with themselves through some of the rationalizations heard in the LeVeaux report.
The theft of intellectual property is a nationwide and a worldwide problem. It is time that we teach honesty in education. One's personal desire to get into a certain university or whatever that need is cannot void the fair process employed to get there. All of us need to demand that the course of study set before a student be learned by that student before graduation. This demand is for our safety and the safety of the nation. (See Student honesty)
Frank A. Jones
"If the foundations be destroyed, what shall the righteous do?"
