Kids’ Cheating Is Cultural

How have we arrived at a point where student cheating has become a firmly rooted part of life in our high schools?

The latest shocker from the campus of Sunny Hills High School in Fullerton involves the digital age. New technology is supposed to be a facilitator not of dishonesty but of learning. But at the root of this incident, and of those that have preceded it at schools in the area, are long-standing questions of commitment to academic integrity.

Two years ago, Sunny Hills tossed 13 top students from the National Honor Society for cheating in a high school philosophy course. The same school has been back in the news this month with the disclosure that about a dozen honors students have been disciplined for using e-mail to share information on a history final.

The offenders have been disciplined, but what has this school learned from previous experience? Apparently, not enough. Sunny Hills and other nearby schools toughened policies to prevent cheating recently, but the problem is persistent.

For all students, the Internet has increased temptation. It has made it possible to recycle old term papers, exchange diskettes and move material around to crib the work of others. Students even can bring calculators into tests with sample problems worked out.

But it’s too easy to say that is a problem brought on by the computer chip. Computers facilitate a problem that already exists. In the case of Sunny Hills, the problem appears to be systemic. But don’t blame just one school. Students everywhere apparently still are using some of the old dishonest ways of passing around problems, flashing answers with signals and tapping on desks.

The real culprit is a pervasive culture that allows students to think that cheating is OK, and even necessary to compete. A couple of years ago, reporters asked students around Orange County about the Sunny Hills philosophy course incident, and many said they saw nothing wrong with copying homework occasionally. The justification amounted to a kind of hierarchy of offenses. Cheating on homework did not constitute the same level of offense as cheating on a test. This was excusable because homework was viewed as busy work, and people were occupied with other things on weekends that did not allow sufficient time for school exercises.

This pattern of thinking is well established for more serious offenses as well. As far back as 1985, a study by the state Department of Education found that three-quarters of students surveyed acknowledged using crib notes on a test at least once. In the case involving the Sunny Hills philosophy course, one youngster openly lamented that his chief concern was a potential problem getting into college.

We aren’t doing enough to impress upon students early on that cheating is wrong. The Sunny Hills situation is particularly disturbing because the school signaled previously its seriousness about addressing this problem.

So how is it that we have allowed this cheapened view of the value of independent work to become so pervasive that even a school-based reform can’t root it out? On a very basic level, the idea that cheating is morally wrong has to be communicated and reinforced to students more effectively. Perhaps some parents have too casual a grasp on the principles to provide direction from the earliest grades on academic honesty. There has to be a role in the formative years for early school teachers, clergy and care providers.

It is also clear that we are now at a time when people don’t know what the purpose of homework is. It’s time to communicate some clearer direction on that subject. It’s not busy work. It’s an academic exercise both to learn the material at hand and to develop patterns of problem solving that are the basis for a lifetime.

The question at this point is as much about how to root out the cultural problem as it is how to identify and discipline individual violators of academic codes. Those who are tightening guidelines and imposing discipline deserve support and encouragement in their efforts. But the rest of us need to do more and sooner to root out an attitude that allows some students to conclude it’s OK to cheat.