<p>The critical difference is that your examples are either of actual legal minors(14 year olds) or those where there is a demonstrated lack of capacity BEYOND mere age. </p>
<p>The 21+ drinking laws, IMHO are an artifact of our culture’s puritannical conflicts with alcohol and how much/little we perceive the capabilities of adolescents and young adults. If 18-20 year olds are still adolescents as such drinking laws imply…why not raise the age of adulthood and its associated responsibilities to 21+ and maintain one minimal age of adulthood for everyone? </p>
<p>IMHO, if one’s considered mature enough to fight for our country…including operating multi-million dollar equipment/weapons, enter into a legal contract, elect our political leaders, etc…all rights/responsibilities assigned to ostensibly 18+ adult citizens,…they’re old enough to drink/go to nightclubs as far as I’m concerned.</p>
<p>I’m agreeing with you Cobrat I think. I think the punishment should fit the crime. I don’t think it belongs in the legal system unless the companies and colleges are unwilling to own up to their problem. If kids knew their cheating would be reported to colleges I think that is an appropriate deterrent. Colleges have always stood behind their honesty policies…it’s alittle “fake” to turn their shoulder on cheating that occurs right before those kids arrive in the hallowed gates of college. Fines is sorta laughable considering these kids paid thousands to cheat…a “fine” is simply increasing the cost of the cheating…until the testing companies report these kids to the colleges there is no bite where it hurts the kids.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, considering what’s coming out in the recent reports about the testing companies’ policies and the ways some colleges handled cheating…the legal system may end up having to be involved…which will only be helpful if they actually put some real serious teeth in any penalties meted out. Fines alone won’t do the trick. </p>
<p>Wondering if placing a 5+ year bar on applying/attending any higher educational institution will be a better deterrent.</p>
<p>I don’t know…it would be interested to know what colleges would do if they knew their applicants cheated. How would a selective college with a published honor policy HAVE to handle a known cheat? If good colleges simply said they would not accept a known cheater that seems like an appropriate deterrent, afterall these kids are cheating so they can get into a “better” college…that’s the ONLY reason they cheat. The kids that don’t cheat are letting the chips fall where they lie. I don’t think you have to ban them from applying to college the colleges simply have to walk the talk…and put their money where their mouths are so to speak and not accept kids that cheat. Seems fair to all to me. </p>
<p>The college testing businesses might be “afraid of being sued” but the irony is all that happens is that particular incident ends up in the court system…how is that inherently different from the current situation where the kids are going to end up in court. To me, the burden really lies on the testing companies to prove that kids are cheating on their tests, not “the people” to prove that the kids are cheating on tests. Fear on the part of the business is no excuse when they simultaneously talk about integrity. They are running from a problem they created.</p>
<p>We would need to enforce some uniformity in high school curriculum and grading, as Canada does as described in post 413. As it is now, if there were no means of comparing students across different high schools (the role standardized tests exist for), there would likely be much more grade inflation in high schools, and even less incentive for high schools to ensure a high level of course rigor (the existence of AP tests may be the main incentive for many high schools to offer rigorous courses leading up to and including AP courses).</p>
<p>Going to a Canada-like system of higher uniform standards in high schools would be an improvement for most students in the US, and would improve the value of high school grades as predictors for college performance while reducing or eliminating the need for standardized testing. But it is unlikely to happen due to the tradition of local and state control, and the incendiary politics around some aspects of the school curriculum (e.g. evolution, Thomas Jefferson, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, etc.).</p>
<p>I am amazed at the efforts made to move the goalposts of guilt. Excuses such as increased competition or increased demands on students are just that, and poor and distasteful excuses to boot. The truth is that those kids and the parents that helped with the payments are crooked and amoral. Participating in such organized deception is not a small deception.</p>
<p>This case DOES belong in our courts and a strong message should be sent to all violators. The College Board that is owned collectively by the colleges should force all colleges that received the scores to bring the students up on honor charges as this crime was directly related to the admission at their school.</p>
<p>It is time to stop condoning the culture of cheating among certain groups and in certain areas of the world. It is not an accident that this happened where it did. The tip of an iceberg is an appropriate image.</p>
<p>“The 21+ drinking laws, IMHO are an artifact of our culture’s puritannical conflicts with alcohol and how much/little we perceive the capabilities of adolescents and young adults. If 18-20 year olds are still adolescents as such drinking laws imply…why not raise the age of adulthood and its associated responsibilities to 21+ and maintain one minimal age of adulthood for everyone?”</p>
<p>You clearly don’t know your history. The drinking age was raised to 21 in a similar period in which the voting age was being lowered to 18. (Would you have preferred the voting age to have remained at 21?) Lawmakers made a judgment that indeed young people were mature enough to vote at 18, and not mature enough to drink at 18. They were not AT ALL an artifact of puritanical culture. On the contrary, they were part of a reasoned, considered judgment (that you can disagree with, of course) that putting the drinking age at 21 would save lives. And it did. THOUSANDS of them, just in drinking and driving. And hundreds of studies have shown radical changes in whether individuals end up with lifetime alcohol problem based on the age at which people start drinking. </p>
<p>Now am I naive enough to believe that the drinking age is universally honored? Of course, not? But has meant, for the most part, that 18-year-old high school students are less likely to be purchasing alcohol for their 14-year-old brothers and sisters.</p>
<p>Again, you can disagree with this reasoned, considered judgment, just as you can with the laws that say blind people shouldn’t drive, mentally impaired people shouldn’t vote, and very elderly people can’t change their wills without proving they don’t have dementia. All very good issues to discuss. But it has absolutely nothing to do with puritanism.</p>
<p>Actually, my arguments are derived from examining certain aspects of US history such as the blue laws…especially in New England which date from puritan times to the prohibition movements which became so successful they actually passed a constitutional amendment to effectively ban all alcoholic consumption. An amendment which was passed for religious/ethnic prejudicial reasons*, urban/rural cultural divides, and outright political pandering to certain powerful constituencies at the expense of others as it was for the promise of curing social ills popularly associated with alcohol use. </p>
<p>That is…before it was found that Prohibition not only failed to fulfill its promise of curing such ills, but actually made them worse, facilitated the transformation of many small-time gangs into major organized crime syndicates, and encouraged increasing contempt toward the law and the legal system as a result of the imposition of what was widely seen as an unjust/unfair law imposed by sanctimonious rural religious zealots and hypocritical pandering politicians. All these were factors which eventually…and IMHO…thankfully drove the repeal of prohibition and discredited its supporters. </p>
<p>In light of the above history and from my studies as a politics minor…please pardon me when I stifle a chuckle at the thought politicians have the capacity and moral right to make judgments about the maturity of certain populations…especially when the studies they rely on are often put forth by lobbyists with ulterior agendas (i.e. Puritanical religious zealots, excessively overprotective parents, etc) and many of them behave just as immaturely or worse. </p>
<p>Disclosure: Personally, I only drink socially a handful of times per year…but I feel the 21+ drinking laws are a bit infantilizing and not necessarily an improvement in facilitating responsible drinking from what I’ve seen on many college campuses and various professional parties/bars in my post-college life. </p>
<p>I always did better on standardized tests than my GPA would have indicated - even got called out back in 7th and 8th grade. Have learned three things about myself since - 1) am borderline ADHD, 2) do not learn new material quickly, 3) most of what I learn I know forever. 1) means it is easier to do well on tests that require 1 minute of concetration. 2) means that I am going to have to spend more time to do well on intermediate tests. 3) helps on finals and tests taken covering material after finals - I loved it when teachers would say that an A on the final erased everything else.</p>
<p>Students who report a better score that they would have earned are stealing from other students - either on admission or on scholarships</p>
<p>xiggi: while I concur in principal, the fact is that not all colleges have ‘honor’ codes; heck, I would guess most do not. Sure, the applicants can be banned by the colleges for lying on their application. But the college student who took the tests for the high schoolers broke no college rule. Just because you and I think that such cheating is immoral – and should be punished – the punishment HAS to be equal to that handed out for similar infractions.</p>
<p>An equivalent situation would be if a broker took the series 3 or 7 for a candidate. the one who took the test would lose his/her lisence and the one who did not take the test would not recieve his/her license.</p>
<p>Perhaps all involved should be barred from college for a time.</p>
<p>sorry, p-girl, not even close to equivalency. A broker’s license comes with some very strict rules/regs. It also has plenty of precautions to prevent cheating – one reason why it’s expensive.</p>
<p>Some of the test perps are teenagers. Others are already enrolled in college, and presumably adults.</p>
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<p>By whom? The colleges themselves? If a college does not have an honor code, under what authority do they kick out a current student (who took the test for a high schooler)?</p>
<p>I believe that it was you who posted about the Patriot Act and committing fraud by using a fake ID. What about thousands of teenagers to commit fraud every weekend when they go bar hopping with fake ID? Are they too to be kicked out of school for one offense?</p>
<p>“Actually, my arguments are derived from examining certain aspects of US history such as the blue laws…especially in New England which date from puritan times to the prohibition movements which became so successful they actually passed a constitutional amendment to effectively ban all alcoholic consumption.”</p>
<p>Again, your history is, well, shall we say, spotty? Most of the country already had a drinking age of 18 years when the new laws (including lowering the voting age to 18) were enacted. The age-21 drinking age had absolutely nothing to do with “puritanism” - if that were the case, we wouldn’t have been at 18. The politicians looked at the public health data, and made what were at the time somewhat unpopular decisions (but which brought in more federal highway funds). And it was one of the most successful public health interventions of the late 20th Century.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, after looking at the data (which is very, very extensive), I imagine one could come to a different, reasoned, and reasonable conclusion. But either way, it would have absolutely nothing to do with puritanism.</p>
<p>(And, by the way, Puritans did not believe in or practice prohibition. The Mayflower - Pilgrims of course - had more beer on it than water. And one of the very first acts of Harvard College was to create a brewery. And they, along with the Quakers, became the center of the rum trade.)</p>
<p>When I used the term puritannical…i was mainly talking about blue laws in New England and other areas which date from their period and common figurative usage to denote periodic contestation in US History between those who use moral panics, religious/ethnic prejudice, and religion to promote a prohibitionist/restrictions on alcohol usage and those who feel that all responsible adults should be free to use drink so long as they don’t violate the rights of others. </p>
<p>I believe one key difference in our perspectives is that you have far more faith in the objectivity and intelligence of our politicians than I. A faith that has been eroded first by actually studying politics and its processes in history…and then observing the behavior and intelligence…or the lack thereof of many politicians within my adult lifetime.</p>
Honor codes rest on the assumption that everyone who subscribes to themshares certain values and norms. And yet repeatedly on this thread one hears that there are cultures where the value of: doing one’s own work, respecting the authorities and institutions that create the tests, allowing everyone to play by the same rules – are not shared. Therefore, one can’t expect to have an honor code in that situation.<br>
If everyone who applies to the top schools ALSO has AP exams which appear to be proctored somewhat rigorously (is that a fair assumption) then why can’t a school get a read out of the student’s abilities and aptitude for college work by looking merely at how many 4’s and 5’s the individual has on the AP exams.<br>
Also (well, three thoughts): Given that most states now have some form of standardized tests, why can’t the combination of standardized test scores on state exams plus AP’s provide a sufficient readout? (I grew up in NY State and it’s my understanding that our Regent’s exams, even then, gave the people both at our state universities and elsewhere in the country, a pretty accurate assessement of who the good and not so good students from NY state were.)</p>
<p>I don’t recognize your comparing using a fake id for the purposes of drinking as the equivalent of misrepresenting oneself for the purposes of taking a test as a valid argument. </p>
<p>It is possible to get in quite a bit of trouble for using a fake id in order to obtain entrance into a bar or for the purchase of alcohol. The authorities do not choose, generally, to enforce it that way, but they sometimes do. I find the ethical equivalency you are using for your argument to be empty of meaning for me and simply an expanded version of what is wrong with our culture. </p>
<p>Corbat, Mini is right on his history on this one. There are differing opinions in the professional community as to whether or not the 21 age is preventative in terms of certain alcohol and drug issues, but not as to whether or not is effective in preventing the loss of life due to motor vehicle accidents, which was one of the main purposes, if not the main purpose of the original law, which became countrywide, mainly due to the withholding of highway funds. fwiw</p>
<p>I think you both are ignoring the links between the motivation behind the 21+ drinking laws and the long history of contestation between prohibitionist-oriented movements motivated by moral panics and those who feel that most ostensible legal adults are mature and responsible enough to drink without having an infantilizing law treat them as effective adolescents for an additional three years. </p>
<p>A law that IMHO is illogically inconsistent considering that same subset of ostensible adults are allowed to vote for our political leaders, wield deadly weapons in the defense of our Republic, or even get a license to own some for hunting/self-defense purposes in some states.</p>