<p>IN A STUNNING new cheating scandal at the city’s most prestigious public high school, a student has been forced out of Stuyvesant over allegations of using a cell phone to give test answers to more than 50 other students.</p>
<p>The student was caught photographing the citywide Spanish exam last week, the Daily News has learned.</p>
<p>A proctor who noticed the suspect behavior searched the boy’s phone and discovered the pupil also took pictures of his physics and English state Regents exams — and distributed the answers to classmates, sources said.</p>
<p>@4thfloor “I should add that people at Stuyvesant I know consider the Regents just a little harder than a class quiz. See the red bar.”</p>
<p>I’m not sure wether you’re trying to downplay or defend the offense but just because an individual is brilliant doesn’t mean that they don’t benefit from cheating. If you don’t know the material then you’re not going to do well on the exam PERIOD. And , yes, there is tremendous pressure on these kids to excel and move on to top colleges which speaks to motive when it comes to cheating scandals. Smart kids can be lazy and show poor judgement too.</p>
<p>I am saying that, although things do look bad, maybe we should withhold judgment until more is known about the circumstances.</p>
<p>This is more than likely not about passing the Regents, which is all that’s required for the diploma but, as someone suggested, acing them. I don’t know if these Regents are used for GPA or not; it could be class-by-class. If not, could it be for bragging rights, or could it be a stupid prank? Just entertaining some possible scenarios. Fifty people is a LOT of people for serious cheating.</p>
<p>As I said above, it does look bad, and something has certainly gone wrong – Ahsan violated school policy on cell phones, for one. But for the whole story, the investigation is still ongoing.</p>
<p>so, one student was forced out, what about the students that received the exams? I believe there are at least 50 of them? Even if they can’t prove they used the info, the students were probably under an honor code that says they are required to report cheating…</p>
<p>I don’t believe in making an example of one person.</p>
<p>I also think it’s peculiar that kids at Stuyvesant would be concerned about the Regents.</p>
<p>It’s also completely unclear from the articles whether anybody other than the kid who was caught did anything wrong. Even if he texted answers to somebody, that doesn’t mean they asked for it, read it, or used it. I suppose it’s possible they have a duty to report it, but I doubt it, in a public school. I note in particular how irresponsible the NY Post reporting is, unless they have different information from the other reports.</p>
<p>I looked at a couple of the articles about this, and I really want to hear the rest of the story. Are the Regents’ all given at the same time? If so, this cheating could only be effective if the other kids could also look at their phones during the test to see the answers. If they can show that they didn’t do so, there’s no cheating ring.</p>
<p>Hunt - that’s the function of the NY Post - bad, irresponsible reporting! I do agree that I find the whole thing distasteful, no one at Stuyvesant would need to cheat on a Regents, few would need to cheat even to ace it. I am also certain this has been going on for years in different forms. When I was in high school it was the first time they made a big deal over it. The State canceled the English Regents (then taken in Senior year) because someone stole it in advance and then the dominoes fell so that Regents were canceled fairly frequently because of thefts. </p>
<p>I am certainly not belittling cheating, I’m just saying it’s rampant throughout the state and to charge one kid is so very wrong.</p>
<p>Yes, we need to be careful about jumping to conclusions about all of the 50 people – what if Ahsan sent it to a crush who didn’t ask for it?</p>
<p>The NYP reporting is not any more irresponsible than that of the Daily News or CBS. In fact, it was more thorough than that of the New York Daily News, CBS, and New York Times. The bottom line is that the Department of Education is not saying a lot while the investigation is ongoing.</p>
<p>To Hunts’ point, yes the Regents is given at the same time throughout the state so it does make it curious as to how this particular cheating ring worked.</p>
<p>No, the NY Post’s reporting was worse because it said there was a 50-student cheating ring–something that doesn’t seem to be supported by the information that is available so far. I read a number of articles, and they all (to me) show lazy reporting. Not one, for example, indicates whether the Regents exams are all given at the same time, a key fact in understanding whether they really could be a cheating ring.</p>
<p>Other states, including Maryland, have statewide tests. I can’t imagine smart kids cheating on the Maryland ones. It would be unnecessary added work.</p>
<p>The other states have very similar types of exams though. In MD, it is MSA, in VA it is SOL’s, can’t remember the name of the DC exams…But students must pass them to graduate. So they may not be called Regents, but they are basically the same thing. And yes, lots of cheating problems.</p>
<p>It is not news to local readers that the Regents are given at the same time.</p>
<p>And yes, all the news sources are struggling with limited information. I believe I read somewhere else – maybe the petition page – that the “cheating ring” is huge, so the Post’s reporting is not far off target.</p>
<p>This is not a discussion about the Post anyway. If you want to dump on the Post, start another thread. Let’s discuss cheating, either at Stuyvesant, or in general.</p>
<p>Sorry, but I reserve the preprogative to dump on a sorry rag like the Post whenever it comes up in conversation. If the Post’s feelings are hurt by my mean statements, it can respond by becoming a real newspaper. I think it’s ironic that the Post can’t even tell the story straight when it’s reporting on cheating.</p>
<p>The Daily News is something of a rag, too, but it’s a slighly less sorry rag.</p>