Pupils Cheat Expectations
Schools Hope Students Learn From Mistakes Without Harsh Penalties
By Jay Mathews, Washington Post Staff Writer, Sunday, October 28, 2001; Page C01
When the newly elected student government president at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda was caught cheating on a final exam, many teachers and parents thought he should lose his student office and all credit for that semester's history course.
Instead, he kept his office, passed the course and just got a zero on that test -- a result that inflamed the school community to a point that students initiated an unsuccessful impeachment campaign last month.
Yet a survey of educators across the Washington area and the country reveals that the limited punishment used at Whitman is common in U.S. high schools, despite increasing evidence that cheating is prevalent. And most teachers and principals argue strenuously that anything tougher for a first offense would be wrong.
"You have to be really careful that you don't paint yourself into a corner," said John Nori, of the Reston-based National Association of Secondary School Principals. "Just because a student has done this doesn't make him public enemy number one. The key is that he learns from his mistake."
Marie Shiels-Djouadi, principal of Wakefield High School in Arlington, said -- as many other administrators did -- that a first-time cheater at her school "would never flunk the course and would not be removed from a presidency or office."
Lorraine Brooks, principal of River Dell Regional High School in Oradell, N.J., agreed. "Believe me, it is difficult to go back into a classroom when your teacher knows you have cheated. And a zero is a big deal, especially for those kids who are accustomed to A's," she said.
This low-key approach to cheating stands in marked contrast to many schools' zero-tolerance policies on drinking or drugs, policies that call for removing students from sports teams or other extracurricular activities even when offenses occur off campus.
Educators say, though, that the context and consequences of these common misbehaviors are very different. "A course is something a kid needs to graduate, so a second chance is appropriate," said Doug Graney, a history teacher at Herndon High School. "Football is extracurricular, and drinking is potentially fatal."
Amid such pressing worries as student violence and new state testing, high school teachers and principals say cheating does not rank much higher on their list of concerns than speeding in the parking lot or writing dirty words on the restroom walls. Teenagers have always taken advantage of careless teachers, they say.
Indeed, three of four high school students admitted to serious cheating on tests -- using illegal crib notes, copying answers from others or helping another student cheat -- in a recent survey of about 4,500 students by Rutgers University professor Donald McCabe.
A less-formal survey by Whitman's student newspaper, the Black & White, found a broad spectrum of questionable activity, as well. The unusually public case of the student body president forced the Whitman community and Montgomery County schools to evaluate how they deal with cheating.
"I thought flunking the course after cheating on the final exam would have been a given," said Maureen Fox, co-president of the Whitman High Parent Teacher Student Association. "And I would have thought that when this kid got caught red-handed, he would have realized he had lost his credibility and would have handed in his resignation."
A committee of parents, teachers and students at Whitman is revising the student handbook in hopes of strengthening its guidelines on the consequences for student leaders who cheat. Frank Stetson, the community superintendent overseeing Whitman, said an academic integrity committee at the administration level could make such changes systemwide. No changes are expected, though, to the academic policy that gives a cheating student a failing grade on a test but not for the course.
Indeed, every major Washington area school district has rules that dictate, or at least strongly suggest, that first offenders get a zero on the test. Private schools generally follow the same rule, though there are some notable exceptions.
At Episcopal High School, a private school in Alexandria, an honor committee hears cheating cases. School officials said the most likely punishment for a student leader caught cheating on an exam would be expulsion.
"It would not be automatic," said John Walker, the assistant head for student life who leads the honor council. The six students and four faculty members on the committee would make a recommendation to the headmaster. The student would probably be told to leave the school unless he was too young or too new to understand the rules.
Some researchers, though, believe such strict sanctions are not the best approach.
"Our position favors less harsh penalties, more frequently applied," said McCabe at Rutgers, who along with Gary Pavela at the University of Maryland, has offered solutions to the cheating problem at colleges. "The reluctance of people to inflict harsh punishments often leads to situations where nothing is done, [and] less harsh penalties that are designed to be rehabilitative in nature potentially have a more positive impact."
Indeed, the philosophy at most local schools is that cheaters need a good scolding, a meeting with their parents and a reminder of the shame many of them still feel when they take shortcuts.
Kenneth Bernstein, while teaching ninth-grade social studies at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt, was tipped off by students that one panicky teenager was helped by others when he stepped out of the room during an exam. He announced that he expected written confessions and in all but one case got them. He then told the offenders to recommend a punishment and lowered their grades as they suggested.
"I thought it more important than being punitive that I restore a sense that they take ownership and responsibility," he said. "As far as I know, I had no further cheating in that class."
Susan H. Schwartz, a physics teacher at Paint Branch High School in Montgomery County, said she allowed an otherwise conscientious student caught cheating to retake a much tougher version of the same quiz.
Schwartz said the student was appreciative and on her own initiative sat apart from everyone else in the class during every subsequent test.
Despite their successes in shaming some students, many teachers and principals say they are worried by what appears to be an increasingly large minority of teenagers who think cheating is no big deal.
"When I was in high school, cheating occurred but folks did not talk about it or admit to it," said Stephen L. Bedford, Gaithersburg High School principal. "Now, some kids readily admit to cheating as some sort of badge of honor."
Some parents will use the prevalence of cheating to defend their child, said Julia C. Hankins, principal of the Westlake High School Ninth Grade Center in Austin. "Unfortunately," she said, "the malaise of 'Everyone is doing it' has somewhat risen to being used by adults to excuse behaviors for things that are wrong."
"As far as the motivation for cheating, look around us," said Charlie Ostlund, principal of Oakton High School in Fairfax County. "Income taxes, Bill Clinton, Gary Condit, office supplies that come home, etcetera. The role models and examples are omnipresent. There is little doubt that we are an outcome-based society, where little emphasis is placed on the process. Whatever it takes to be number one."
Some teachers believe cheating can be reduced or eliminated through watchfulness and adjustments in testing styles, such as using more essay questions. Students also tend to cheat less, teachers say, if they are excited by the subject matter and happy with the instructor.
Daniel McMahon, principal of DeMatha Catholic High School in Hyattsville, said his assistant principal, Tom Burke, has often discussed the issue with students. "The top two reasons they don't cheat are number one, no opportunity, and number two, they don't want to lose the respect of a particular teacher," McMahon said
Staff writer Annie Gowen contributed to this report.
© 2001 The Washington Post Company