"Nationally, 75 percent of all high school students cheat. But the ones who cheat more are the ones who have the most to lose, which is the honors and AP (advanced placement) students. Eighty percent of honors and AP students cheat on a regular basis."
~ Denise Pope
Duke University Business school is reeling from an academic scandal involving 34 students. A recent and extensive Rutgers survey of graduate students revealed that 56% of MBA students cheat and 47% of other graduate students cheat. A 2005 Duke University study revealed that 75 percent of high school students cheat, and "and if you include copying another person's homework, that number climbs to 90 percent."
If you thought it was the dumb students who cheat, you would be wrong. It is actually the students who get good grades who are most likely to cheat according to studies.
We are a nation of cheaters.
What is going on?
Some blame pressure to succeed. From a San Francisco Chronicle article on cheating,
The pressure to succeed weighs heavily on these students. An upper-middle-class senior at an East Bay private high school, whom I'll call Sarah (who like many high school and college students I interviewed insisted on anonymity), sums it up succinctly: "There's so much pressure to get a good job, and to get a good job you have to get into a good school, and to get into a good school, you have to get good grades, and to get good grades you have to cheat."
The pressure to succeed at all costs has boosted cheating levels in college to record levels also. A graduate of San Francisco's independent Urban School, whom we'll call Ellen, now a junior at the University of Southern California, says, "Everyone cheats. There is no cushion, so you have to do well; there isn't a choice. In college, there is no room for error. You cannot fail. You refuse to fail. People become desperate, so they'll do anything to do well. That's why people resort to paying others to do their papers. Because you feel: Mess up once and you are screwed. The end."
Well, maybe. Or more likely, in my opinion, is the loss of an objective moral compass that always points north. Cheating is wrong. Regardless of whether you are caught. Regardless of whether everyone else is doing it. Regardless of whether it results in high GPAs or good jobs. A cultural shift has taken place. What used to be viewed as wrong, is now viewed as acceptable.
It used to be that cheating was done by the few, and most often they were the weaker students who couldn't get good grades on their own. There was fear of reprisal and shame if apprehended. Today, there is no stigma left. It is accepted as a normal part of school life, and is more likely to be done by the good students, who are fully capable of getting high marks without cheating.
~Everybody Does It, San Francisco Chronicle
That is what happens in a society that has lost its moral footing and slipped into ethical relativism and consequentialist ethics. The reality is that what you do in the little things of life matter in the big things of life as well.
“One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much.
Luke 16:10
Cheating at school today turns into Enron tomorrow. Imagine a future of doctors, lawyers, politicians, civic leaders and business leaders who are all comfortable cheating when they think it helps. That is exactly where we are headed. Some would say we are already there.
For those students reading this, just remember the Luke 16:10 "little-big" principle. How you do in the little things in life is a measure of how you will handle the big things in life in the future. Grades are important ... but not at the expense of honor.
We need to stop putting the responsibility to control cheating on our teachers. That responsibility belongs in the home. Parents need to teach that cheating is always wrong and even more important than that ... they need to model that cheating is wrong. Actions speak louder than words.
We are a nation of cheaters. The answer is strong, moral training in the home. This epidemic can be reversed.
Good Post. I attend a Bible College and you would think that cheating did not happen, but if I wanted to I could contact a person and have the answers in no time...it has infiltrated even into Bible teaching schools.
To flip this a little bit in regards to just cheating, do you think we are putting to much pressure on children? I can remember my father when I was in Mid School telling me good grades equals good school equals good Job. I went to college and flunked out because of that pressure. I am now 30 years old and getting ready to graduate in a few months. I did not cheat to stay at it, I quit.
What is it in society that is driving children so hard. I am convinced that by the time my son graduated High School getting a basic job anywhere (even the golden arches) is going to require a degree. As more and more people get a bachelors then the new standard will be a Masters degree and so on. Where will the push stop? We will be the most educated nation, and underemployed nation.
Posted by: Carl Holmes | September 12, 2007 at 08:26
Not only has our culture shifted away from the grounding of absolute morals and ethics, creating the ability to cheat without fear of guilt and reprisal, but we continue to shift towards a mentality of laziness and attention-deficit. The major shift from a primarily print culture to one of television media is contributing towards a mindset that cannot comprehend the amount of work it takes to complete an education by appropriate means. The unholy union between advertisers and psychologists fuels the desire to achieve pleasure at all times by the simplest route. These changes and others over the last 50 to 100 years are eroding the foundational principals and mindsets on which greatness is built. There is a reason for the sharp uprise in disillusionment, depression, anxiety, etc in recent years despite our continued gain of wealth. We are sliding down a long slope and are not yet near the bottom, I fear.
I say all of the above not only by looking at the current state of affairs around me, but by looking into my own life and heart. A child of the late 70's early 80's, I find myself constantly struggling with the desires for pleasure and satisfaction in the now, versus living an honest life within my means and reaping the benefits later.
Thankfully, there are upright and thinking men an women still maintaining an active influence on society. Your site is a testament to that with your own thoughts and the resources you pull from and link to. Please keep up what you do here in helping to get the word out about these truths.
Jim
Posted by: Jim A. | September 12, 2007 at 09:37
It's ironic that you are talking about this; I just encountered an incident of cheating in school recently. As a sophomore in high school, I am still shocked at how prevalent cheating is. However, I think the worst part of it is that there is no guilt whatsoever with the cheating. Students cheat and feel nothing about it; it is just something that they feel they have to do and everyone does it. This angers me, too, because I work hard and I don't want someone getting a grade as good or better than me when I studied and they cheated.
I consider cheating to also be doing less than what is assigned. If a student doesn't read a book and instead uses Sparknotes, etc, to pass the test, I would consider that cheating. All the other students had to read the book, but the one who read Sparknotes didn't and might get the same grade.
I guess it is like a conversation I had with a friend at school. She said she wouldn't cheat unless she "had to." I think kids get this from their parents who "cut corners" at work, on taxes, at home. Like many other habits, cheating could be learned from the influence of parents on their children.
Posted by: Rachael | September 12, 2007 at 20:16
"To flip this a little bit in regards to just cheating, do you think we are putting to much pressure on children? "
Absolutely. And church goers have bought into the world's philosophy of good grades = good school = good job.
Where is there any mention of the heart in that equation? How about wisdom and not just knowledge?
But to answer your question directly, yes. Parents apply too much pressure to children. And parents don't really consider cheating wrong ... especially when it benefits them.
Posted by: Mr. Dawntreader | September 12, 2007 at 21:17
"As a sophomore in high school, I am still shocked at how prevalent cheating is."
As a teacher of sophomores, I am impressed with your writing skills. Keep up the good work!
I try to help my students by removing temptation when possible. My test-writing program allows me to print multiple versions of each test so that no student is seated near another student with the same item order. They don't even glance at one another's papers. As for writing assignments, I find that I have to spend much time defining, discussing, and teaching students to avoid plagiarism. Sadly, many steal ideas and language anyway, and they don't even seem embarrassed when they are caught. There is little stigma attached to cheating in the rising generations, I am sad to report.
Posted by: Rob Ryan | September 13, 2007 at 07:11
"Where will the push stop? We will be the most educated nation, and underemployed nation."
I was not aware of this trend, Carl. Are entry level jobs truly requiring college degrees and high grades? I entered the work force full time twenty years ago. College degrees were helpful, but many of the software developers I worked with were flat out brilliant ... and some of them lacked college degrees. Anyway, your comment interests me because I was not aware of that trend.
Jim,
I appreciate your comment. I agree with it 100 percent. In fact, that is why I am a big supporter of the movement back toward a classical education. I am not alone, either. The home school movement and the amazing growth of classical schools is a testament to the fact that people are fed up with dumbed down ... image based ... "teach for the tests" education. It doesn't work. It produces a society like you describe ... with moral confusion thrown in.
Rachel,
"I guess it is like a conversation I had with a friend at school. She said she wouldn't cheat unless she "had to." I think kids get this from their parents who "cut corners" at work, on taxes, at home. Like many other habits, cheating could be learned from the influence of parents on their children."
Great comments. I agree with Rob that you write well! Rachel, do me a favor. I want you to ask your friend what would cause her to cheat. In other words, she said she would cheat if she "had to". Define "had to". Report back with your findings.
Rob,
Your efforts to prevent cheating are gallant. But I agree with your assessment. There is no stigma associated with cheating. How do you propose we "re-stigmatize" cheating?
Posted by: Mr. Dawntreader | September 13, 2007 at 08:16
Mr. Dawntreader:
Where is there any mention of the heart in that equation? How about wisdom and not just knowledge?
It probably says something about my taste in music that I shouldn't reveal, but Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Simple Man" seems relevant:
www.lyricsfreak.com/l/lynyrd+skynyrd/simple+man_20086106.html
I was not aware of this trend, Carl. Are entry level jobs truly requiring college degrees and high grades? I entered the work force full time twenty years ago.
"Degree inflation," like "grade inflation" is an ongoing trend. My grandfather apprenticed for a job that would require a minimum of a B.S. Engineering degree today. My father has a B.S. in chemistry but would probably have a minimum of an M.S. today. My job required a Ph.D. for entry, but it would probably have required an M.S. or B.S. a generation ago.
Most of my peers start having children in their late 30s, because they are students until their mid 30s. It is a particular problem for women who want to work in science or engineering, but it's not great for men either.
Posted by: Nick | September 13, 2007 at 09:12
Thanks for the compliments! :)
I have had teachers who make two forms of tests and give them out so that each person has a different test than the person beside them. I like it when teachers do this, because it eases my temptation to look at my neighbor's paper, and I don't have to worry about them looking at mine.
Actually, at the time I had this conversation with my friend last spring, I did ask her what "had to" meant. She wasn't sure what she meant, either. She seemed to think that it was ok to cheat on something that wasn't that important, but as I kept asking her questions, her reasoning kept breaking down. I finally said that I thought that cheating was wrong because the Bible says so, and she seemed to think that if it is just a little cheating or lying, it's ok. In other words, there is no clear distinction between cheating on something important and something not important. People can cheat and just decide that it doesn't really matter, that it is just a little deception, and ease their consciences.
Posted by: Rachael | September 13, 2007 at 16:50
"How do you propose we "re-stigmatize" cheating?"
That's a tough one. The easy answer is that we as parents must inculcate a disdain for the practice, but we all know that we don't rear children in a vacuum. Children draw from society at large, as well as the family, in formulating their moral parameters. It sounds trite, but it really does "take a village". Our society is no longer as homogeneous as it once was, and it probably was never as homogeneous as nostalgia for the "good old days" would have it. Somehow, our society must move as one to value honesty and scorn dishonesty, but we seem to be moving in the other direction. I think part of the blame must go to our leaders for letting us down in this regard, but most of the fault lies with us for tolerating it.
Posted by: Rob Ryan | September 13, 2007 at 19:44
Nick,
What accounts for the degree inflation? Honestly, in the software industry, the supply of talented American software developers is so bleak that we are looking to India and China for talent. This hardly seems like a job market that requires more advanced degrees. I don't often look outside my own industry. Perhaps in other types of engineering there is a glut of workers. I looked at the L.S. lyrics and did not see the relevance ... but maybe I am not a big enough L.S. fan.
Rachael:
"She wasn't sure what she meant, either. She seemed to think that it was ok to cheat on something that wasn't that important, but as I kept asking her questions, her reasoning kept breaking down."
Her reasoning kept breaking down because it does not work. You can't defend cheating on moral principles. The only way to defend cheating is if you argue that it is okay to do things that benefit you regardless of what rules are broken. If that is your overriding principle in life, cheating is fine. Guess what. That is becoming the overriding principle at all levels in our society. It is called by several fancy "ism" names. I prefer to just call it what God calls it ... sin.
Rob:
"The easy answer is that we as parents must inculcate a disdain for the practice, but we all know that we don't rear children in a vacuum. Children draw from society at large, as well as the family, in formulating their moral parameters. It sounds trite, but it really does "take a village"."
I agree. I do think the family has the greatest influence though. Still, I think society has an important role to play in shaping values. You and I will disagree on how is the best way to go about doing that, of course. I think that God has provided a means for doing that through the church and through what reformed theologians call common grace and more Thomistic oriented theologians call natural law.
I also think worldviews come into play. Ideas are not formed in a vacuum. They are developed as an extension of our base assumptions about what is really real and really true about the world. Hence the importance of understanding worldviews and figuring out ways to test to see which worldview most conforms to reality.
Posted by: Mr. Dawntreader | September 14, 2007 at 08:26
The trend might partly be in my head, but the fact is that degrees are getting developed to the point that a 40 year old construction worker can get a degree, an 18 year old can get a degree, and so many people with degrees on the market what is next?
I speak from the example of me finishing my BA this next month. It is going to help me in the field of ministry, but to truly be considered a strong applicant you now must have a MDiv. It is crazy.
Sorry if I ceased the moment to vent a little, but I think it is going to get worse.
Posted by: Carl Holmes | September 14, 2007 at 09:07
Carl Holmes, I think that Nick's point about "degree inflation" is borne out in your experience. But I also think that with an ever-more-complex world, we need a concomitant increase in education levels to live in it.
Posted by: Steve | September 14, 2007 at 14:17
Nick and Carl,
I asked two of my "20 something" friends about your comments about degree inflation.
They responded with an instant yes, it is true.
One of them suggested that the problem is not necessarily smarter people, but degrees are easier to get (and therefore worth less). Perhaps we have the internet to thank for that ...
This is eye opening for me.
Posted by: Mr. Dawntreader | September 14, 2007 at 14:30
Some blame pressure to succeed. ... Well, maybe. Or more likely, in my opinion, is the loss of an objective moral compass that always points north.
You speak as if those two points are unrelated, when in fact they are directly related. It's not just that there's pressure to succeed; it's that there's pressure to succeed by any means necessary. And that opens the door for cheating. In some ways success has become a "moral good" in the minds of many, and that moral good trumps the moral good of fair play.
Look at Jack Welch's recent book, in which he argues (in part) that executives deserve the compensation they get because they can and do get it.
Where I would disagree, however is with the idea that this is anything new. What's changed, I think, isn't the percentage of people who cheat, but the percentage of people who are willing to admit that they have cheated.
It may surprise you to learn that I mostly agree with you here. While I reserve the right to withhold judgment on a case-by-base basis, generally speaking, cheating is wrong, no matter who else is doing it.
Posted by: tgirsch | September 14, 2007 at 14:35
Rachael:
If a student doesn't read a book and instead uses Sparknotes, etc, to pass the test, I would consider that cheating.
When I was in high school, I was incredibly lazy. Not only did I not read the book, I didn't even bother to read the Cliff's Notes for the book. I got by with what I was able to remember from in-class discussion of the book in question. Did I "cheat?"
As a side note, I will carry to my grave the notion that making The Scarlet Letter required reading constitutes a mild form of child abuse...
Posted by: tgirsch | September 14, 2007 at 14:40
Mr. Dawntreader:
I was not aware of this trend, Carl. Are entry level jobs truly requiring college degrees and high grades?
At the risk of threadjacking, yes this is the case, and it's not just because of grade/degree inflation. With the rise of outsourcing and the decline of organized labor, an ever-growing percentage of our "good" jobs are the sort that require specialized knowledge, well beyond what one typical learns in high school (or even home school). When my parents graduated from high school, it wasn't that difficult to get out and get a decent job with good benefits straight out of high school. That's much more difficult now.
Look through the want-ads, and you'll see that with the notable exceptions of customer service, retail, and food service (none of which generally classifies as a "good" job), nearly everything else requires a degree of some sort, or equivalent past experience. But even the past experience thing is a catch-22: you can't get the experience if you don't have a job, and you can't get a job if you don't have experience.
In other words, what Steve said in one sentence. :)
Honestly, in the software industry, the supply of talented American software developers is so bleak that we are looking to India and China for talent.
That's simply not true. It's not for a lack of talented candidates that we look to India and China. It's because the candidates in India and China are orders of magnitude cheaper. That whole outsourcing thing again. This is why you're increasingly seeing entire programming and tech support operations moved off-shore. No worries about expensive salaries, benefits, or even H1 sponsorships. It's a race to the bottom, and I don't know how we can stop it.
The only way to defend cheating is if you argue that it is okay to do things that benefit you regardless of what rules are broken.
I don't think it's quite that black and white. What if cheating can save a life, for example? What if playing by the rules will cost lives? Mind you, these are extreme examples, but I'm using them to illustrate the point.
Nick:
I'm glad you mentioned age and parenting. One of the many (MANY!) reasons why I don't have kids is because I've only recently gotten to a point where I feel I'd be financially independent enough to do so, but at the ripe old age of 36, I already consider myself too old to have a family. By the time my Dad was my age, I was 11 years old, and I'm the youngest of his three. All of us were out of the house by the time my dad was 46; if I started a family now, I'd have kids in the house until I was almost 60!
There I go threadjacking again...
And the only problem with that Lynyrd Skynyrd song is that it's not quite awful enough. Thankfully, Shinedown was up to the task of making it even worse... (Which makes me think that Raymond was the sound tech.)
Rob:
Somehow, our society must move as one to value honesty and scorn dishonesty, but we seem to be moving in the other direction. I think part of the blame must go to our leaders for letting us down in this regard, but most of the fault lies with us for tolerating it.
Amen... And for the threadjacking trifecta, I'd like Jeff's thoughts on this, especially with regards to the book Men In Black, which Jeff raved about, but which I found to be fundamentally dishonest (in the service of partisan goals).
Posted by: tgirsch | September 14, 2007 at 15:05
tgirsh:
I would consider this cheating, though it is not how people usually define cheating. I would think this just because it is doing less than what is expected and assigned. I know that isn't the definition of cheating, but it is deception, in that you were in essence saying (or at least implying) to the teacher that you had read the book like everyone else, and yet you didn't.
I'm just curious: did you really do that well just from classroom discussion? When we have to do book studies, discussion revolves around questions that we all had to answer for a grade. After we get the questions back, or at least after we turn them in, we have discussion. Even if I passed the test from discussion, I would still lose a lot of points from not turning in my questions.
btw, you aren't too old to have kids; my dad was 40 when I was born. :)
Posted by: Rachael | September 14, 2007 at 17:18
"if I started a family now, I'd have kids in the house until I was almost 60!"
... so ... and ?
Rachael is right. You are not too old. I think I recall the real reason for no kids for an old conversation we had ...
Posted by: Mr. Dawntreader | September 14, 2007 at 17:37
Rachael:
I see where you're going, but by that standard, everyone cheats. You've diluted the meaning of the term.
Whether or not what I did in school constitutes cheating depends on what the goal of education is. If the goal is to learn something, and I did in fact learn, and I harmed nobody else in the process, then while what I did was far less than ideal, I'm not sure I'd call it "cheating."
And to answer your other question, I was a terrible student -- sort of. I was always very good at tests, and I got by on that skill. I almost never did homework of any kind, but did well on the tests, and that was enough to get me decent-but-not-great grades. In English classes, where there was a lot of required reading, I was a C-D student. In History and Science, where tests, papers, and in-class work made up the bulk of the grade, I was about a B student. And in Mathematics, I was an A student, clear up to Calculus (which had a lot more to do with natural aptitude than with any sort of hard work).
By all means, DO NOT follow my example. If I had bothered to apply myself in school, I'd probably be running a company somewhere or holding elective office. In fact, in my High School, I was one of what many considered to be the two smartest students in our class. (Smart does not equate to "good student," by the way.) The other guy applied himself, and I didn't. Our ACT scores differed by one point (his one better than mine). He was Valedictorian. I graduated with a scant 2.7. He's a two-term Alderman for the City of Milwaukee. I work in a cubicle. There's a lesson in that.
Don't get me wrong: I do quite well these days, but it's only because I finally buckled down and applied myself in my professional life, in ways I never did in school. I'd be ten years farther along had I been a better student.
[/end of sermon]
Mr. Dawntreader:
As I said, I have many reasons for not wanting kids. The biggest one by far is that I view children as the sort of commitment that should never be entered into lightly. You shouldn't have kids unless you really want to, unless you're willing to make your kids the absolute highest priority in your life -- indeed, the only priority, at least in the early years. I'm not willing to make those kinds of sacrifices. That doesn't mean I don't respect and admire those who do. (But I do have serious issues with those who have kids without taking the commitment seriously.)
Now how's that for a threadjack? :)
Posted by: tgirsch | September 15, 2007 at 00:16
tgirsch:
I see what you mean. It may not have been "cheating," per se, but it isn't right. (And I know you weren't saying that it was.)
P.S. Don't worry - I am a straight-A student. :)
Posted by: Rachael | September 17, 2007 at 16:45
Rachael:
You'll find that I'm a bit of a stickler for semantics. It's not cheating unless you're doing something to give yourself an unfair advantage. By that standard, even reading the Cliff's Notes doesn't count, for several reasons. For one, someone who read the whole book should still have a better understanding than -- and thus, an advantage over -- someone who read the summary; for another, there's generally no rule against reading the Cliff's Notes; for a third, taken in the spirit in which they were originally intended, a good student could read the Cliff's Notes in addition to the whole book to help gain a better understanding. Reading Cliff's Notes is no more cheating than having your pastor help you interpret the scripture.
Posted by: tgirsch | September 17, 2007 at 21:08
P.S. You know what they say -- the A students work for the C students. (My old classmate is living proof -- as an elected official, he now works for the population at large.) :)
Get out there, and prove 'em wrong!
Posted by: tgirsch | September 17, 2007 at 21:09
Mr. Dawntreader:
The L.S. lyrics seemed relevant to comments on the pressure to succeed.
I suspect that one cause of degree inflation is the dramatic economic success of our culture. More people can afford to pursue advanced degrees, so more of the people competing for jobs have a B.S., M.S. or a Ph.D. The possession of a degree is presumably used by recruiters as quick indicator of a candidate's qualities. This may not be true in software engineering, but it seems to be generally true across the board in the natural sciences and in business/law/medicine. Heck, these days even secretaries often have a B.A.
Posted by: Nick | September 18, 2007 at 07:59
Nick:
Q: What do you say to someone who has a B.A. in Liberal Arts?
A: No, thank you, I would not like fries with that.
:)
Posted by: tgirsch | September 18, 2007 at 12:34
Economic theory speaks of college and graduate degrees in terms of signaling and screening. The additional time and expense, including the opportunity cost--the salary you might have otherwise made--of going to college or grad school is a signal to potential employers that a certain job applicant is a hard worker.
Posted by: Steve | September 19, 2007 at 12:15
I think that when these students cheat, they lie. People think these students are so smart and that they do so well in school,when really that knowledge may come from someone or something else. If they cheat and get good grades in school,they may get academic privileges that they don't really deserve.
Posted by: Carrot Top | September 20, 2007 at 11:00