<p>Here's the situation. My D came home the other day very frustrated from two really tough finals. While we were trying to talk her off the edge, she let it slip that many of the kids taking honors and ap classes are cheating their behinds off! I am not totally shocked by this revelation, but I had no idea the amount of cheating going on. We are not talking gamesmanship like going into school late to avoid a test or staying home from school so an assignment can be postponed (which is bad enough). We are talking flat out cheating. Using class notes during exams, copying homework, dividing up assignments so you are only doing one quarter of the work, etc.</p>
<p>Furthermore, this is a private, Cathoilc school with a pretty strict honor code. The president of the school's son was expelled for a whole year when he was caught cheating.</p>
<p>The kids have to sign each exam stating that they did not cheat. My D is blown away by this. She has known some of these kids since kindergarten. This obviously doesn't effect my D's GPA but definetly effects her class rank.</p>
<p>So, here's my question. What if anything do I do about this? My D wants me to forget I ever heard this. I want to speak to the academic dean. My D is afraid of getting in trouble as the honor code clearly states that anyone witnessing cheating is obligated to come forward. She does not want to be involved at all. Is there anything I can do or is this just life in the big city??</p>
<p>My daughter is a junior at a gigantic selective public high school. When she was a freshman, her school started giving school-wide midterm exams, advised to do so by the Dept. of Education because there are so many sections of many courses. She was horrified to see kids cheating openly by using their cell phones to look up answers when she took her first midterm. The proctor in the classroom paid no attention to the students, working diligently on her paperwork.</p>
<p>I persuaded her to allow me to communicate this with someone in the school. I first wrote to her teacher who asked me to contact the principal, which I did, and the problem was addressed. I identified myself because I had her permission; perhaps you could write anonymously if you can’t persuade your daughter to allow you to be more open?</p>
<p>My daughter too has come home complaining about girls openly cheating in her classes. It annoys the crap out of her because they are getting good grades and their GPA’s are better then hers. She has struggled through Math and Spanish with average grades.</p>
<p>I have told her that these folks will probably get caught at some point in their lives. There is a good possibility they will get caught in college. We have not mentioned any thing and with the way kids can turn on each other I don’t think I would say any thing.</p>
<p>The easy thing to do is say/do nothing but, I agree with oldmom -rat them out. We teach our kids ‘Cheaters never prosper’ yet, in this case, they do. It sounds like there were a bunch of witnesses and no one has come forward, some “honor code”.</p>
<p>This isn’t the first time they have cheated and, at some point, they need pay the price. If the school is serious about it, the consequences will be pretty severe - like suspension/expulsion but, that’s a much smaller price to pay than getting booted from a fancy college or convicted of white collar crime later in life.</p>
<p>If your daughter won’t go along, find a way to get the info to the teacher and or principal. An anonomous paper letter that spells out the violations - dates, courses, methods of cheating and names the violators should do the trick. You don’t even need to tell your daughter you did it.</p>
<p>If no one reports the cheating, the cheaters will likely get away with it, be rewarded with better college admissions due to their higher GPAs, and then continue to cheat in college. </p>
<p>My student saw this behavior in college, with TFs turning their heads to exam-taking students taking multiple trips to the bathroom, phone peeks, and other methods. Sad to report these kids got good grades, won coveted banking and consulting jobs, and are still riding high. Perhaps in a decade or so we will see their faces in perp-walk photos in the WSJ. </p>
<p>For now, the OP can inform on HS cheaters anonymously, and hope the school actually cares enough to do something.</p>
<p>Thanks for the input so far. I wouldn’t be too harsh on the kids for not ratting on their peers. That’s a lot to ask of a HS kid!</p>
<p>Even if I decide to bring this to the attention of the administration, I have no intention of naming names. I just would like the teachers to be more wise to what’s going on right under their noses.</p>
<p>This happened pretty often in my large public high school. I’ve since spoken to my teachers after I’ve left, and the problem is always proof. Especially with involved, outspoken parents, the burden of proof in many of these cases is on the teacher that the student cheated, and if it’s the teacher’s word against the student’s, the student wins. Most of my teachers dealt with this by makng multiple versions of each exam/test (one or two did four or five different versions of an exam) simply because they couldn’t prove anything.</p>
<p>The problem is that once it starts, it tends to snowball. Kids who wouldn’t cheat if there wasn’t rampant cheating think that they are justified in doing the same thing so their class ranks won’t suffer. They’d rather cheat than rat out their friends. Sad, but too often true.</p>
<p>I would advise my D to comply with the honor code. I would not contact anyone, but if my child was not willing to comply with an honor code that was very explicit in what was required of one who witnessed cheating, I would not be willing to listen to her complain about cheating for even half a second. She’s contributing to the problem. If there was not an honor code that was clear on the requirement to come forward, it would be totally different, and I probably would contact someone at the school (without naming names). FWIW, I attended law school at a public university with a similarly strict honor code, and I never once witnessed cheating. If students take their obligations under an honor code seriously, it works.</p>
<p>I don’t know if teachers know or not, but all three of mine told us that many kids cheat…from the very top of the class to the very bottom. I think it only bothered them when kids that cheated got better grades, but for the most part they seemed to shrug it off. I would have no idea if mine ever cheated. I can say if they were it didn’t propel their grades to a point where I was suspect.</p>
<p>Any chance you can report it, and say that your daughter was simply afraid to? It is true, and shows that she is very aware of what the honor code is, just afraid of the repercussions of reporting.</p>
I think the school’s son should impeach his president and elect a new one!
Easy: give anonymous tips. If you don’t already have multiple email accounts for the purpose of having multiple online identities, I suggest you create one now and start using it.</p>
<p>To clarify: I’m amoral. I cheated throughout middle and high school with no moral regrets then or now. I never cheated in college. My only regret is that I enabled myself to be lazy and laziness is a difficult habit to break. I really don’t care if cheaters get caught; who am I to criticize them? But I hate to see people…</p>
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<li>not doing what they think is right because they value silence. That’s how the Mafia became so powerful and it’s how so many areas with gang activity have become so royally screwed up beyond the direct effects of crime. It’s also how families are often ruined by lack of trust. Omert</li>
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