<p>123456789bc The numbers posted are directly from UC Berkeley as stated.</p>
<p>Monta Vista and the Cupertino tri school district including De Anza is a huge number playing racket to attract wealthy foreigners to live here. Punishment for cheating is practically nil and extremely rampant.</p>
<p>Underneath the exterior of the pleasant brick-lined halls of MVHS, there is a trade brewing, fueled by students’ thirst for high grades. Knowledge and aid are exchanged for good will and help as problems are discussed and mistakes reviewed. But this passing of knowledge is far less innocent than the casual tutoring—in fact, it is a black market in itself where connections make all the difference. It seems that the boost of caffeine-fueled cram sessions just aren’t enough when all one has to do is ask a TA friend for “help.”</p>
<p>It’s the common solution for an empty period—sign up to be a Teacher Assistant for a well-liked teacher and receive course credit just for grading homework occasionally and sleeping, studying, or doing nothing for the rest of the time. But it seems that TAs may receive more of an edge than the easy credit—with access to gradebooks and peers’ homework, they often have the power to manipulate the system and give their friends an advantage.</p>
<p>“Basically the teacher put the system into place and I exploited it,” Victor Lam* said. “I found a loophole.”</p>
<p>Last year, Lam TA-ed for a history class. Given by the teacher the password to the electronic gradebook, Lam had access to the grades of students in all of the teacher’s classes. He was given as much responsibility from grading tests to printing out six-week progress reports and sending them to the office. Towards the end of each semester, his friends began to approach him asking him to change their grades.</p>
<p>“They had borderline grades and wanted a cushion going into the finals,” Lam explained. So if they said they needed a certain percentage, like they had an 88 percent and wanted a 90, I’d add a point to every test or assignment or give them credit for things they forgot to turn in and that would add up. You can barely notice it.”</p>
<p>Though Lam first changed his friends’ grades as a “favor” to them, soon other people began to ask him and offered to pay him money as word got around. He estimates that he earned about 60 dollars in total from his “favors,” changing the grades of at least ten people.</p>
<p>While such control of the gradebook is unusual for a TA to have, TAs in other classes find different ways to help their friends cheat by grading easier or passing inside information on quizzes. “It’s so widespread, that I wouldn’t consider it cheating,” Lam shrugged. “Basically half of my friends who are TAs do this. It’s like a bartering system. If there’s someone who’s a TA for math, he’ll say to someone TA-ing in chemistry, ‘I’ll trade you math stuff for chem stuff.’”</p>
<p>Last year, Rahul Singh* received copies of Spanish tests beforehand from his friend who TA-ed for a Spanish teacher. “He’s an all-rounder kind of guy,” Singh said, almost with a note of admiration. “He would take pictures of math tests with his cell phone and as a TA, he would go through trash cans when the teacher asked him to recycle stuff or gave him packets.”</p>
<p>When Singh’s friend found tests, he photocopied them and sold them for five dollars each. Singh received copies of five tests and the final last year. “He gave me a pretty good discount,” Singh remembered. “I got the final for just three dollars. I think he’s still selling the tests this year.”</p>
<p>Singh guesses that his friend had at least half of the second semester tests. Although his friend did not TA for the same teacher Singh had for Spanish, the tests used by the Spanish teachers were the same tests from the book. Singh estimates that the dishonestly obtained tests boosted his grade five to eight percent.</p>
<p>With such rampant unethical behavior going on, it’s a surprise that the cheating is not caught by teachers. While Assistant Principal Brad Metheany said that students have been caught in the past and punished accordingly, for the most part, he said, “Teachers are very conscious of protecting grades.”</p>
<p>However, Lam said that his chances of getting caught were “next to none.”</p>
<p>Similarly, Veronica Tranh*, a math TA who gives points to her friends when they don’t turn in homework, said her risk of getting caught is “like zero.”</p>
<p>While much of the blame for the cheating can be laid on students, it seems that teachers must accept responsibility as well. “According to the California Education Code, teachers are not allowed to have students grade homework or access the gradebook,” Metheany said. “It’s against the law. If I see teachers doing that, I remind them of their professional responsibilities.”</p>
<p>If a TA is discovered to be cheating, they are dropped from the class and given a F. In addition, when the Administration writes college recommendations for the student, the Administration must comment on the incident. However these harsh penalties don’t seem to resound with the TAs who are confident of not getting caught.</p>
<p>“I think teachers should be more cautious,” Ernest Miller* said. “They give TAs too much responsibility. Of course people are going to tempted to cheat.”</p>
<p>Last year Miller TA-ed for a math teacher and graded homework and tests, entered in grades, and even wrote tests. Though he says he did not cheat, he was accused of doing so. “There was a TA in another period who had access to the tests and began selling them,” Miller said. “When the teacher heard the rumors, he thought it was me and confronted me about it. I told him I didn’t do it, but it took a long time for him to believe me and trust me again.”</p>
<p>Though most teachers check over the work that their TAs do, most do not check every single thing. “I will usually sample randomly,” math teacher Ed Puccinelli said. “For the most part, I trust them to do the job right.”</p>
<p>Although the only school rules for accepting TAs are that the student must be approved by the department chair and the teacher, some teachers have their own guidelines.</p>
<p>Math teacher Martin Jennings ensures that the TAs he takes on are students who he has “a degree of trust in and confidence in their integrity and competence,” usually translating to the fact that they must have had him for a class before. He allows his TAs to mark papers and tests, record homework and run errands, but draws the line at letting them take attendance or do grades.</p>
<p>Social studies teacher Ben Recktenwald does not allow students enrolled in his classes to TA for him. “It just seems that if they TA for me second period and have me fourth period, they could see the tests and use that to their advantage,” he said.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, this speculation of cheating methods is one of the shocking realities. Russ Chen* who TAs along with another student for a science class often sees his fellow TA, who has the teacher in another period, take copies of tests for his own use. “Usually, the teacher will deliberately give me the tests to make copies of,” Chen said. “But [the other TA] will find ways to see the answers.”</p>
<p>Another student, Lauren Ju*, has witnessed a similar incident in her social studies class. “It was FRQ [Free Response Question] day,” Ju remembered. “And the period before had just finished taking it. One of the FRQs had fallen on the floor and the TA who had just walked in casually picked it up and walked out. The teacher was at the desk so he didn’t see. Then a minute later, the TA walked back in without the test in his hand. I guess he put it in his backpack.”</p>
<p>While it would seem that the line between right and wrong would be clear, even the definition of “cheating” is murky. When asked if he has ever cheated academically, Lam confidently answers “no,” not considering helping people cheat as actual cheating.</p>
<p>“Sure, it’s unfair, but isn’t life unfair?” Lam said. “In life, if you know people who can hook you up with a job, of course you would want to take advantage of that. It’s the same thing. In the class, there would be people taking the test with textbooks under their desks. So it’s just fair game, you know?”</p>
<p>However, Lam is not without his own reservations about “helping” people. “This guy who ditched class 3 to 4 days a week asked me to change their grade and I flat out said no,” Lam said. “It was more possible for me to get caught and not only that, I personally don’t like people who don’t try.” Lam said that the most he is willing to change a grade is two percent, saying that “one to two percent means they are at least working hard to try to get the grade. But if they need 10 percent, then they’re not putting in an effort.”</p>
<p>Tranh approaches her cheating similarly. “The teacher gives everyone two points on the math homework, so it’s not a big deal if I give them the points. If it was more, I’d feel bad and then the people would say, ‘I don’t want to study.’”</p>
<p>Though Tranh has no qualms about giving unmerited points, she says she would not ask the same of her friends. “I just study hard,” she said. “I wouldn’t get help like that because it’s wrong.” After a pause she said, “Well, I guess giving my friends the points is wrong too.”</p>
<p>Singh gives his reason for using stolen tests as, “I had other priorities. If I wanted to, I could have studied and gotten the grade since the tests are extremely easy, but the copies saved me time so I could focus on other things. The class had no importance to the subject. If I wanted to pursue Spanish in life, I’d have to take an advanced class outside of school.”</p>
<p>It is explanations like these that are disregarded by Metheany as meaningless. “People can justify anything they do in life, but they know right from wrong. They’re not little kids anymore,” Metheany said. “That’s not a friend who says ‘Help me out here’ and expects a friend to do that.”</p>
<p>Amongst the widespread cheating that occurs, there are some who agree with Metheany. Upon asking senior David Guan, a TA for science teacher Travis Hambleton, if he has ever been asked to help people cheat, he replied, “Of course” as if it were only a fact of the job.</p>
<p>“They come up to me and say ‘Give me extra points!’” Guan said. “They do it jokingly, but you can tell they want it. I think lower of them after that.”</p>
<p>Though Guan said that if he were to attempt to cheat, his chances of getting caught would not be very high, he said, “I’m not going to cheat. Hambleton’s a nice guy. I’d feel like I was breaking his trust.”</p>
<p>Similarly, senior Dheeraj Srinivasan who TAs for ______ is often approached by students with less than respectable motives. “A lot of sophomores and freshmen in the class come up to me,” he said. ‘They ask, ‘Why don’t you give me an A?’ and I tell them, ‘No, you earn your grade. It’s not my fault you don’t have a good grade. There’s even extra help offered after school.’”</p>
<p>“The teachers base their trust in TAs,” Srinivasan said. “I’d feel guilty and ashamed and if I were to do that.”</p>
<p>Not only does Srinivasan deem the cheating wrong from the TA viewpoint, he said of asking TAs to change grades, “It might help you in high school, but you can’t cheat your way through life. In jobs and work, you’ll be asked to solve problems yourself and what are you going to do if you don’t know? Ask a TA for help?”</p>
<p>Last year, Jocelyn Lo* had a C in math and found herself faced with an intimidating moral decision when finals came around. “I was complaining that I had a C and this girl said to me, ‘Oh don’t worry about it! My best friend TAs for that teacher. She can change your grade.’ And I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is really tempting, but it’s so immoral.’”</p>
<p>Despite the enticing idea of an easy way out, Lo did not take up the offer. Instead, she worked to get a good grade on the final and raise her grade. However, though she did not accept the offer, she said, “Basically, I was motivated to study hard so I wouldn’t have to be in that situation and be tempted. I’m afraid of what I would have done if I hadn’t gotten that B.”</p>
<p>Lo speculates that if she had gotten the TA to change her grade, “I wouldn’t feel good about it, but I’d probably be relieved. I feel that it’s taken for granted now that someone will cheat. It’s so prevalent that not cheating has become a disadvantage. It’s more about college than the means of getting there. If you don’t cheat, you don’t end up at the top.”</p>
<p>It seems that this sentiment is shared by most of the students. Asked if they felt guilty for rendering grades, Tranh responded with “a little,” while Lam returned “not really.”</p>
<p>Meanwhile, on the teacher side cheating is taken far more seriously, even beyond thoughts of consequences and morals. It is taken personally. “It would definitely hurt me if one of my TAs were to cheat,” Jennings said. “It’s a violation of trust."</p>
<p>However, it seems that thoughts like these are only to be brushed aside by TAs. “Yeah, I went to go visit [the teacher] this year and he was really happy to see me,” Lam said. “I like him. But when the teacher sets it up for you like that, he’s basically asking you to beat the system.”</p>
<p>*the identities of these sources have been changed</p>