Cheating Epidemic in Education – Part 1
There have been several studies released lately, documenting the rates of admitted cheating in schools to vary between 60% to 90%, for everything from test-taking to homework, even attendance. What is most chilling about these statistics is that cheating is not seen as a problem in the majority of cases, rather as a ‘fact’ of education. And the highest percentages of admitted cheating seems to be coming from some of our most prestigious schools, where the pressure to excel is even higher than the norm.
Ruthless competition may be one of the causes of this cheating behavior, but something even more sinister also seems to be at work. A startling 90% of students surveyed admitted to cheating on their homework, yet verbalized NO guilt. Cheating, including everything from copying the work of fellow students, plagiarizing from books or the internet, to paying someone else to do the work, is seen as the “smart, practical” solution to increasing demands for performance.
Although most students don’t want their parents to know they are cheating, most don’t see it as a moral issue, or a matter of integrity. It’s simply a means to an end to the majority. Good work and study habits are being bypassed for technological shortcuts, like answers carried into a test on a camera phone, or crib sheets concealed on the body.
Any answer you’re not certain of can be neatly stored on an iPod or camera phone.
Carrying cheat sheets, or crib notes, into a room by smuggling them in clothing has been around for years and is pretty low-tech.
Cheating has become such an expected part of the education environs that BIC Pens includes notes scribbled on the palm of a hand in one of their advertising campaigns, stating that BIC pens can help you cheat!
What is more sad, is that this decaying educational studying and testing style is being carried out from the earliest to the highest grades. In addition to the moral erosion this engenders, the quality of education in the USA is deteriorating more rapidly than ever before.
This is a sad state of affairs and does not bode well for the future of this country.
NEXT: Results of major studies, and more.
Brennan
