Cheaters Hurt Everyone
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