In School and Afterward

There seems to be over whelming agreement that schools and teachers should

play a major role in establishing honest environments. And responses to my

previous column on the topic affirm that cheating isn’t limited to students.

But let’s say that schools do all they can to ensure in integrity and there

are still students who cheat. How do we respond? Some insist that “cheaters

hurt no one but themselves,” so we can basically write them off. Though that

may be a comforting thought, it is simply not true. There are countless ways

that cheaters hurt others. In the immediate sense, their behavior affects

any class where the teacher grades on the curve. If cheating didn’t pay off,

no one would do it. Students who get the tests ahead of time or bring

elaborate “cheat sheets” to the exam do get higher grades because they set the

curve; the students who really do study may see their grades drop.

Once out of high school, those who cheat may go right on hurting people . If

they got into college under false pretenses, they may need to cheat to stay in

and then to get into a prestigious business school or law school. Then they

may have to fake their way into a career. I even know of a young man who

plagiarized a major college project to get into divinity school. It may be

a shock to the uninitiated to learn how far students will go to get the high

grades they see as essential for admission to the right university.

The following examples are from my personal knowledge: a student breaking

into a classroom at night to steal the teacher’s grade book; a school

valedictorian “hacking” into a teacher’s computer to make copies of all the

exams; a student offered $500 to take the SAT for another student; a student

putting his name on a test after erasing the name of the person who had taken

it; a student handing in a paper a college professor wrote; a student

programming answers into a Tl-85 calculator for a social science test; and,

most recently, a student blatantly falsifying information on a University of

California application.

Honest students are hurt by actions like that. Along with getting lower grades

and seeing hard work devalued , they take a blow to their morale when they

watch cheaters prospering. I’m not suggesting that honest students will

abandon their ethics, but it’s got to be a struggle to keep their integrity

when they are surrounded by people earning the same grades and getting into

the same university without doing the work.

With so many forces at work here, it’s tempting to point a finger of blame at

the admissions officeat Stanford or the creators of the SAT exam. Given the fact

that those institutions aren’t likely to change any time soon, maybe we need

to look a lot closer to home. Though some students are obsessively driven all on

their own, the vast majority are desperate for good grades because that’s

what their parents expect. There certainly is nothing wrong with wanting our

children to do the best they can, but what if their best doesn’t warrant

admission to Harvard? If a student has to cheat to get into the college of his

choice, maybe he has chosen the wrong college. Worth is not determined just by

grades or test scores or the schools

people attend. It’s that simple. If our Boalt Law School graduate uses

illegal tactics in court, if our MBA from Stanford does some insider trading,

if our elected official with a Princeton degree bankrupts a county, what has

been gained? Clients and constituents must now pay the toll. People don’t

suddenly change tactics when they reach the positions they cheated to get.

Dishonesty has become their way of life. Cheaters hurt others when they

become our employers, our tax accountants, our city council members. We and

our neighbors end up paying for their deceit.

Christine Baron, a high school English teacher in Orange County, is the co-author of “What Did You Learn in School Today?” You can reach her at (714) 966-4550.

– Christine Baron