<p>Watch “Deadly Women,” “Snapped” and the other true crime shows and you will see a wide range of sentences in conspiracy type cases. Much of it depends on how much of a Svengali the instigator of the plot is. There are situations I have seen where the actual physical murderer gets a lesser sentence than the spouse, often because the hitman turns informant.</p>
<p>I am not sure that I would necessarily equate someone trying to kill their spouse with cheating on the SAT although I could easily see a TV movie about a driven mother who kills her husband in order to use the life insurance to hire a test taker and then to get a lower EFC on the FAFSA for their child’s applications because now they don’t have his income anymore. Disclaimer: I don’t recommend this plan!</p>
<p>A very close family member who’s a senior at GNN we celebrated Thanksgiving with yesterday commented quite “matter of factly” the kids all knew about the cheaters before the story became headlines, that one paid from his drug dealing business and at least one other kids’ parents knew full well what the money was for. They weren’t pleased with his own scores so, told him to seek out an “alternative”.
They claim many more weren’t caught.</p>
<p>It’s Great Neck, it can be “fixed.” Several years ago, a student in my kids’ HS was arrested in school, drugs found in his locker, texts on the phone arranging drug deals (he was caught because a teacher confiscated the phone after catching him texting in class). The parents are very wealthy and didn’t see anything wrong with the kid’s entrepreneurial leanings. He was suspended for one year which, rumor has it, was written up as a medical issue. The charges went away somehow and it was never in any paper.</p>
<p>It didn’t occur to me that drug dealing proceeds could have funded it. I just assumed that a certain subset of parents in GN is well off enough to give their kids unlimited access to money.</p>
<p>Joan - many of these cases turn on motive. The murderer had no personal motive to kill someone other than a fee where as the person paying has much more to gain?</p>
<p>Bluebayou - Our school district has a policy to add the best scores to the transcript. However, parents can sign a form and opt out of it before ever taking the test.</p>
<p>Doesn’t even necessarily have to be money from parents or illegal pursuits. Several classmates from my high school could have easily earned that money from computer/technological consulting gigs…including one who started a small computer technology company at 12. </p>
<p>And most kids from my high school came from families far removed from the socio-economic status of your average family in Great Neck.</p>
<p>From watching these shows, I was shocked to see how many spousesmanage to manipulate some poor deluded soul into doing their killing for them by promising them love, money, the rest of their lives together, etc. or by preying on them by painting themselves as being abused, etc. The paid hitman with no personal involvement seems more rare, although I will admit that the stories selected for these TV shows are probably picked for their salaciousness and, certainly, the Amy Fisher style killer is more ratings friendly than the paid goon type. So, I can’t really say which is more frequent. However, in most cases, the spouse is the one with the greater motive.</p>
<p>Oh my goodness. I have not read this thread since this morning. Coming back to a discussion on drugs and murder is quite disturbing! I do not think that these kids should get off scott free. But I do not think it is appropriate that the schools they cheated on to get into is not informed of the cheating. </p>
<p>I refuse to go down the road of drugs and murder in these cases. If I am wrong, color me nieve. And I will gladly wear the title.</p>
<p>It’s disturbing to me that this d.a.(she doesn’t deserve caps) hasn’t pursued the funding source since she felt compelled to take criminal action!
OTOH, if CB had appropriate security measures in place Nassau County taxpayers wouldn’t be paying the bill.</p>
<p>Educators do a lot things that don’t make sense. And this is one of them. By requiring opt-out as opposed to opt-in, your district may also be violating federal privacy laws. </p>
<p>Collegeboard is a private corporation. Why a school district would spend tax payer dollars transcribing private data onto the public school transcript is beyond me.</p>
<p>Of course, since CB is in business to sell scores to colleges, they recommend against putting scores on transcripts.</p>
<p>bluebayou,
So, then make the COLLEGES pay for all the additional expenses: the proctoring, the sites, the security clearance. They can tell CB to make all the changes to ensure integrity of the scores, and CB can say no, not unless they pay for it. Then the Colleges have to decide how important the REAL (or ANY) test scores are.
It should be considered a cost of doing business to the colleges. And they should WANT to know who the cheaters are!!!</p>
<p>BTW, the Free Market/logical consequences approach by students taking these tests would change if, after going through the process above, the colleges declare they just do not want to make or pay for or pass along the cost of these changes; they are saying they really do not care about the cheating: EVERYONE SHOULD CHEAT THEN. Why not? Would seem to be a viable option! Changes the so-called “culture” a bit , doesn’t it?
Oh, I guess it would not be “fair” to those who could not afford to pay for it…</p>
<p>“Collegeboard is a private corporation. Why a school district would spend tax payer dollars transcribing private data onto the public school transcript is beyond me.”</p>
<p>Despite being private, collegeboard is a non-profit.</p>
<p>The primary reason for existence of high schools is to get their students to college and that is how their success is measured.</p>
<p>Texas actually pays for one test, either SAT or ACT at the end of their junior year to help with this process.</p>
<p>Although the problem is entirely created by administrators of the high schools, the solution would be quite simple for the College Board. All TCB would have to do is to stop providing the SAT scores to the high schools. Could it be more simple than that? </p>
<p>Fwiw, students should NEVER list their high school on the TCB registration and parents should NEVER tolerate the listing of scores not obtained as part of the high school curriculum. </p>
<p>Why this moronic practice started at schools remains puzzling. It speaks volumes about the cavalier attitude education officials have for privacy issues.</p>
<p>Your local hospital is a non-profit…does your district post medical records on transcripts, too? :rolleyes:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Really? Does your high school post that reason in its mission statement? Does Texas reward high schools for getting students into college? (It’s a serious question, bcos I have never seen such a stated goal for a high school.)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well then, the state/districts probably can claim some ‘ownership’ of that one report for which they pay…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The vast majority of test takers are not one percenters and the vast majority of colleges that use the tests are publics, which are going broke. Where do you think that public colleges will find the money to pay CB for increased security?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Which is why it’s not a practical solution. Colleges claim to care about economic diversity.</p>
<p>Humm, not really! The fact that the state pays for the tests does not give them ownership, be it total of partial. The test scores are owned and controlled by the student. The intermediaries that receive the scores on an informational basis have zero ownership in such scores. Your health insurance pays for some of you health costs, but does not own your medical reports.</p>
<p>LOL bluebayou, you missed my sarcastic point- that not everyone an afford to pay for cheating!!! It cost these kids 3000 bucks to pay for an imposter!</p>
<p>So… acc’g to you, the current situation is just hunky dory, no way to fix it.
Got it… next, methods of cheating will be become standard test prep fare. </p>
<p>You and colleges worry so much about correcting SES fairness; why are you not so worried as to want to correct the unfairness created by cheating? [and apparently rich kids and drug dealers will be able to afford have that advantage]
Cheating is WRONG. Being successful financially is not “wrong”.</p>
<p>I think they should assign scores by family income in the area surrounding the school, and by years of parental education. They won’t be too far off. The prestige schools will be happy - it will keep the average scores up, and everyone can go on to living a happy life. In aggregate, there’s really no need for the tests at all.</p>
<p>As we know, the correlation between income and scores is mostly based on self-reported data. The level of parental education is another story as the parental education might have been obtained in a foreign country. </p>
<p>Just think how incongruous the data generated in California is. On the one hand, the UC system reports the highest number of Pell grantees. The highest scores in California are supposed to be earned by Asian students. But, on the other hand, there are reports that indicate that the income of Asians is the highest among all minorities. </p>
<p>Could someone assume that the students who report their family income do not know they are poor? Perhaps they rely on their comparative lifestyle much more than on what is reported on their family’s 1040 and Schedule C? </p>
<p>From my vantage point, I think it would be interesting to make heads or tails from stories about families with well-educated parents who immigrated to the US, currently operate a dry cleaning or donut shop with a SAT Prep branch in the back, have children with superior academic results, drive to the Sunday service in a Lexus, but report income below the poverty line, or low enough to qualify for Pell grants.</p>
<p>There’s more to it. Of course. We talk about “Asian” students. Or (something I know about) Asian Indian students. Well, most Indians can’t emigrate to America. There are almost no sons and daughters of Dalits in America (that’s 275 million people). There are no sons and daughters of tribals and “forest dwellers” and those of other scheduled castes in America (that’s 200 million people, give or take). Then you can take India’s historically poor who are not members of either of the two groups (maybe 300 million) - they aren’t here. So that leaves you with sons and daughters of upward mobile Indians, often land-owning (even if small holdings), with a tradition of education, and doing business. Some of them come to the U.S. and operate donut shops. Some motels (think Patels). The motel owners are sometimes poor - to begin with. They don’t have Lexi. They might qualify for Pell grants - now. But history says they will rise. (Anecdotally, I have engineering friends here with Ph.Ds whose parents ran motels, and still do - and the parents think their kids would be better off running motels - their own businesses - than working for Intel (where they are occasionally laid off). And, yes, they went to UCs on Pell Grants - as they should have.</p>
<p>It’s really not as incongruous as it might seem on the surface.</p>