<p>Majority of the post here seems to me typical hypocrisy goes around in USA. Please, be honest here. People who are talking with very loud mouth about cheating, needs to spend at least month in the class room in the high school. I am more than sure, their views will completely change after this. The boy made a mistake and it was wrong. Do you think, that no one else has done cheating in his class before without getting caught ? There are many punishments for e.g. writting his name on the board and letting everyone in the class know, that we are keeping close eye on this issue and/or community service punishment with the second chance, etc. The problem is here, that school administration is thinking more about school, that it is correctional institute and students are prisoners. I congratulate father and son to fight again system , where they refuse to give him second chance.</p>
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<p>Try again? He can still get back into the program…</p>
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said congratulations of a heroic fight against “the system” may be misplaced since the article in the paper says
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<p>My point is that there SHOULD be a difference to you, wolverine. Yes, we’ve established its bad, but you should be able to acknowledge it’s not the same as cheating on something that’s worth more on your final grade. What if, hypothetically, he only copied one question that he didn’t know the answer to? That’s the same as stealing every test before they’re taken and making a 100 on all of them?
And you can’t be “a little bit” pregnant because it’s a physical condition just like you can’t be “a little bit paraplegic.” But you can cheat a little versus cheating a lot (though I wouldn’t call it by either of those; it’s cheating and cheating worse than that person before cheated). </p>
<p>And don’t take a “moral high ground,” saying YOU learned ethics and integrity and morals from a young age because you’re parents instilled it in you at a young age. Just because people disagree with you does NOT make them bad people and you do NOT deserve to insinuate that they have no ethics at all like you just did. Or I could go into the fact that you also indirectly insulted our parents as well. Do you know what that is? Unethical. So get off your high ground, let your pride go for a little bit, and try to see the debate from our side. No one’s arguing they didn’t cross the line, but that doesn’t make them the same as everyone else who has ever crossed the line. Again, I bring up the stereotyping to genocide. Stereotyping is wrong. Genocide is worse. But both crossed the same line.</p>
<p>“A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.”</p>
<p>Incorrect. At my school it’s “An AGGIE will not lie, cheat, steal, nor tolerate those who do,” and I don’t tolerate it. I acknowledge that there are different levels, however , and as such use a sliding scale for how much I don’t tolerate it.</p>
<p>Texaspg, yes a top 20 school would probably like to see you take the most rigorous curriculum available. First, this boy was offered the opportunity to jump right back in to said curriculum the following year. Second, and more importantly, don’t you think those top 20 schools are also looking for kids who can take said challenging classes and actually complete the work without cheating…??? I keep hearing this recurring theme in this thread of “well, I HAVE to take these classes to get my class rank up and get into the best school, so OF COURSe I cheat. I mean, I can’t actually DO all that work.” Ugh.</p>
<p>xleadinglifex - does A&M use a sliding scale when an Aggie cheats? Not being rhetorical, genuine question. I’m not an Aggie, but many friends are, and I get the impression they absolutely DON’T…</p>
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<p>Zero tolerance policies are bad ideas in general, and especially bad ideas regarding cheating. There are too many situations where cheating took place, but not using any discretion in how the incident is treated is going to harm innocent people. For example:</p>
<p>*Student paper is flagged by turnitin for plagarism. The student who wrote the paper drew from her own original blog post.</p>
<p>*Group project shows clear signs of plagarism. Teacher gives all participants a failing grade, even though only one person was responsible for the plagarism. </p>
<p>*Two tests both show identical answers, right and wrong. Neither student admits to cheating, but one clearly did based on the unusual pattern.</p>
<p>*A student steals a test answer key, and is caught after the test is administered. The student says that he shared the key with the entire class. Several students insist that they did not look at the answer key.</p>
<p>*Student shares her notes (which are supposed to be turned in for a class grade) with a friend. Friend reformats the file and submits it. Teacher penalizes both students. </p>
<p>I’ve personally seen most of the above. Applying a zero tolerance policy sounds great, until you or yours are part of the collateral damage.</p>
<p>SlitheyTove,</p>
<p>With the exception of points one, the rest would be considered serious honor violations at my undergrad under its honor code. At at minimum, they’d require a minimum of an investigation by the judicial board and a hearing to determine those responsible and penalties to be administered to them. </p>
<p>I’ll go point by point:</p>
<p>*Student paper is flagged by turnitin for plagarism. The student who wrote the paper drew from her own original blog post.</p>
<p>If she cited her own blog in the paper in question, she shouldn’t be penalized. If not and she shows she got it from her own blog…she may be dinged for not citing her sources correctly. Something most Profs I’ve had…especially old-school ones take very seriously. </p>
<p>*Group project shows clear signs of plagarism. Teacher gives all participants a failing grade, even though only one person was responsible for the plagiarism.</p>
<p>If the group knew about it as is likely if it is a group project, they’d be considered just as guilty as the plagiarizer for not reporting him/her immediately as they’d be considered accessories to that honor violation. An investigation will be done to determine responsibility and degree of collaboration/coverup if applicable. </p>
<p>If they all knew about it and didn’t report it…they along with the plagiarizer should be worried about more than just a failing grade…but a possible suspension or even expulsion and a notation entered on their records which they’ll have to explain to employers, grad school admissions, and even some professional bodies(I.e. Bar Associations’ Character & fitness for aspiring lawyers). </p>
<p>*Two tests both show identical answers, right and wrong. Neither student admits to cheating, but one clearly did based on the unusual pattern.</p>
<p>Common practice with most teachers/Profs IME would be to give both parties an immediate retest in a closely proctored setting. Some may go so far as to place both in separate proctored settings. Whoever gets the much lower score would be highly suspected of being the guilty party. </p>
<p>If it is determined that one agreed to “help” the other on an exam…both would be considered guilty of an honors violation under my college’s honor code and penalized accordingly by the judicial board. </p>
<p>*A student steals a test answer key, and is caught after the test is administered. The student says that he shared the key with the entire class. Several students insist that they did not look at the answer key.</p>
<p>The thief is definitely guilty of an honors violation here and will be sanctioned considering he was caught-red handed and effectively admitted his unethical deed. </p>
<p>An investigation may be conducted of the rest of the class…but considering he has an interest in trying to spread around the responsibility for his misdeed…there may be questions as to whether he’s fabricated the story…whether partially or totally. </p>
<p>If the rest of the class knew about the thief’s deed and failed to report it, they’d also be considered guilty of cheating under my college’s honor code. </p>
<p>*Student shares her notes (which are supposed to be turned in for a class grade) with a friend. Friend reformats the file and submits it. Teacher penalizes both students. </p>
<p>This would have been considered an honor violation as if the notes were supposed to be assigned as individual assignments, you’re prohibited from sharing them with other classmates unless the Prof explicitly allows it to be done as a group project on the syllabus. Doesn’t sound like the group project situation was the case here.</p>
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<p>My hunch is that the Principal did this not because she was offering a reasonable compromise, but because she realized that imposing those sanctions exceeded her authority.</p>
<p>If she is relying on the argument that one page of the Honor Pledge provides the iron-clad penalty for cheating with no wiggle room, then she would have a difficult time arguing at the same time that she had the wiggle room to pile on more sanctions that were not spelled out in the document.</p>
<p>In other words, she initially had no problem exceeding her authority to impose punishment until someone called her on it. To me, that is far scarier than a child challenging his expulsion from an academically rigorous class that he wants to take.</p>
<p>As much as I don’t want to burst the idealist bubble that has been going on here, consider this: </p>
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<p>There will always be those that will be richer than almost everyone else on the planet, more successful and so forth, and as much as we all want to pin it on hard work and talent (I do believe in the hard work part, not necessarily the talent part), we all “cheat” in one way or another. It’s extremely easy to pin down this kid and his dad and cry foul, but realize this: one got “caught” (whatever that entails),but none the less there are millions who will never be caught, and will lead normal lives.</p>
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<p>cobrat, the original post, much of the discussion on this thread, and the reference to zero tolerance by schools are referred to high school (or younger–sometimes MUCH younger), not to undergrad. I agree with you that these would all be taken as serious violations at a college level. I agree that a 12th grader should be sophisticated enough to understand the issues with many of these. But how many 12th graders are going to turn in a friend who swiped the answer key, especially before anyone got caught? Is it really reasonable to force a maximal honor code violation on someone who shared notes with a friend because the friend said they were missing a few days worth over the course of an entire school year? What if this happens when the students are in 10th grade, or 7th, or 5th?</p>
<p>Let’s go back to that group project where one kid was a plagarist. The students were all in 5th grade, and were assigned to groups of three by a teacher. They all knew that copying information without citing was plagarism. Two of the students got their sections finished in plenty of time. The third student said they needed more time, and offered to incorporate everyone’s work together. The finished product wasn’t ready until the morning of the due date. The two other students leafed through, saw that their work was incorporated, and figured all was well…until they received back their copies with a big red F at the top. :mad: The teacher made no effort to identify the guilty party (which would have been easy). That’s zero tolerance in action. </p>
<p>The two nonplagarists learned a valuable lesson, namely, how to protect yourself from being dragged down with a plagarist. That’s not something that is in the normal 10 year old bag of tricks, and I think it’s asking a bit much of young students to have to learn that on their own rather than it being part of the educational process.</p>
<p>@squidge, I don’t know for certain since no one I know has had an issue, but the policy for cheating is that you present your case to the honor council (or whatever it’s called) and they review it on a case by case basis with harsh punishments being the norm. However it is case by case, so I don’t think you’d get expelled for cheating on homework the first time, but you probably would the second. Again, I don’t know for sure, though.</p>
<p>" First, this boy was offered the opportunity to jump right back in to said curriculum the following year. Second, and more importantly, don’t you think those top 20 schools are also looking for kids who can take said challenging classes and actually complete the work without cheating…??? I keep hearing this recurring theme in this thread of “well, I HAVE to take these classes to get my class rank up and get into the best school, so OF COURSe I cheat. I mean, I can’t actually DO all that work.” Ugh."</p>
<p>As I said before - Lets hang the kid. </p>
<p>The issue depends on whether not being in the classes this semester and dropping down to a lower level will destroy this semester’s GPA or if there is no difference. Once it is destroyed it cant be recovered. Being a parent, I can see me fighting the issue tooth and nail if a semester of higher level GPA is going to be lost irrespective of my values. </p>
<p>Going by slitheytove’s examples - I was thinking of a local school where an entire graduating class in my town in a well known high school was flagged as cheating in a semester final exam. I am still wondering why they did not expel the student body and close the school down. </p>
<p>I am also still wondering why a bunch of schools in Atlanta have not been shut down after they identified the teachers were systematically helping the students during standardized testing over several years.</p>
<p>For those of you attacking me for saying you don’t have honor/integrity/morals…read the posts again. I only question the values of those that cheat and those that try to justify it with pathetic excuses like “everyone does it”. That is, simply put, complete crap. Maybe you’re trying to justify your own “corner cutting” by telling yourself it’s commonplace. I don’t know. But I have indeed spent a lot of time in classrooms recently, as have all my children. If your particular school is a hot-bed for cheating, I feel sorry for you…but don’t try to claim it’s some kind of epidemic everywhere in the country or worse yet, that it’s somehow become acceptable to do. It isn’t…and it hasn’t.</p>
<p>I’ll ask again…(and please, no “yeah but” quibbling answers). Yes or no.
- Did the student and his parent sign the Academic Integrity policy, thereby agreeing to it?</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Did the student knowlingly violate the AI policy by cheating?</p></li>
<li><p>Did the student/parent raise any concern about possible ambiguity in the policy or question the punishment PRIOR to being violating the policy and becoming subject to said penalties?</p></li>
<li><p>Is the student responsible for their actions?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Both sides of this discussion have agreed to disagree on whether or not zero tolerance cheating policies are good/bad/indifferent. THAT IS NOT THE QUESTION HERE!! The issue at hand is an admitted, proven cheater trying to weasel out of a AI code punishment. Period. Whether you think the punishment is too severe or not severe enough is a moot point…the policy exists and was agreed to by all the students in that class and applies to all the students in that class. This kid has not been singled out, isn’t being picked on by the “system”…regardless of how much he whines on Facebook. Honestly answer the questions above and then try to support your position of why this kid should get preferential treatment.</p>
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<p>I also attended a Catholic elementary school and an urban public magnet where they can and would penalize students for those very offenses. Knew of several students in both who were suspended/expelled for copying homework or other acts of “minor cheating”…or in the case of the catholic school…for far less.</p>
<p>Wolverine, it is very possible that the family didn’t realize the inconsistency in the code and simply believed it was a two strike policy when they signed it and thought that until their son got the punishment with his first strike. Have you never missed over something while reading? I find that hard to believe. </p>
<p>And you were in fact insulting our morals because we don’t believe in a clear line, and you said not having that belief was the same as having no morals at all.</p>
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<p>Good heavens, what were those poor catholic school kids expelled for that was “far less” than copying homework? </p>
<p>Are you saying that all three fifth graders in my vignette upthread would have been expelled from these schools? Words fail me.</p>
<p>I find it hard to believe that even a catholic school could still have such a harsh policy without teachers simply having to turn a blind eye to some of it. I mean, cheating has become more commonplace, whether people want to acknowledge it or not. The same study that came up with around 40% in the 60’s came up with 98% in 2011 and I honestly don’t find that hard to believe because that’s probably how it was at my highschool last year. </p>
<p>Some students and teachers just don’t notice and others don’t care, so maybe that’s what it’s like in these catholic schools.</p>
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<p>But he has. He is definitely not the only one that cheats, not by a landslide. It’s interesting to note that we create this big system where we try to funnel our children/ourselves into these “great applicants” which is very much akin to those trying to force their children into top sports, leadership positions and so forth. The kid must’ve learned this behavior some where, and it’s very likely he learned it in his school culture. If it was unspeakable/socially unacceptable to his peers (“snitching” for example), he wouldn’t have done it. In a very naive and straightforward scenario, the correct reasoning would have been this:</p>
<ol>
<li>You are supposed to do your own work.</li>
<li>The teacher is extremely qualified and knows what he/she is doing and is assigning work with a definite purpose. </li>
<li>The teacher loves teaching and did not just go into teaching to earn a living.</li>
<li>Students care about doing the assignment correctly by themselves, not using any other type of aid.</li>
<li>All students have different intellectual abilities but do not have different resources.</li>
<li>All students are abhorred at the thought of receiving unsanctioned help.</li>
<li>High school has a clear and definite goal to funnel future students into successful careers, starting with, accredited colleges for every student level.</li>
<li>The administration at the school cares about its students deeply more than it cares about the data it sends to the state or its college statistic data that it can then brag about to incoming parents. </li>
<li>The honor code has stood the test of time and is as definite as a mathematical proof and is immune to social maneuvering. </li>
<li>Everyone at the school (administrators, students, teachers and the staff) is completely honest in every single way and this student has violated social norms.</li>
<li>Zero-tolerance policies work extremely well, and since this student violated a zero-tolerance policy, he should receive punishment.</li>
</ol>
<p>Obviously, I could go on, but I think anyone reading this will get the general concept I’m trying to paint here. All of the rules I listed will probably solicit laughs from most high school/college students albeit the naive sheltered one.</p>
<p>What would I think is going to happen here? well, if the father doesn’t settle it out of court (which I think he might), the judge might come up with a compromise, although I’m bewildered at why the father didn’t accept the “plea bargain” of allowing his son to join the program a year afterwards. Maybe he has money to burn by suing the school system (which I’m sure the school board doesn’t have)?</p>