By Julia Balli, Copy Editor
Cheating is all too common throughout high schools in America. Many high schoolers cheat throughout their educational careers to “get that A,” and many students are able to get away with it. Either by being sly, or teachers even turning a blind eye.
How many people truly work for and earn the grades they attain these days? Are the “best and brightest” scamming their way through the system?
Erik Herbrechtsmeier, an AP Statistics teacher at Indian Trail High School & Academy, offered his input.
“I think there are usually two main reasons that students cheat. One is the pressure to keep high grades, so your real high-fliers that might be slipping, getting a B and want to get an A, will,” he said. “The other end of the spectrum is the people who don’t do so well in school and they don’t want to fail, so they’re trying to get their grade up to a D or C.”
In a 2008 survey of 24,000 students at 70 high schools, Donald McCabe, who retired from Rutgers Business University in 2014, found that 64 percent of students admitted to cheating on a test; 95 percent said they participated in some form of cheating, whether it was on a test, plagiarism, or copying homework.
Why is it that so many students feel so much pressure to cheat? Many teachers and students speculate that it is the pressure to keep high grades, and some even blame parents who put too much pressure on their children to live up to their high expectations.
Although, many believe that the reason why students cheat is because of poor work ethic.
“I think students need to make their own conscience decisions and not cheat,” said Chris Smith a Indian Trail Medical Sciences Academy junior. “Kids need to put in work and start applying themselves into their learning.”
Katelyn Walbran, a Communications Academy senior at Indian Trail, offered another insight as to why students would feel the need to cheat.
“Students most likely cheat because they forgot to study or they just don’t care enough to study, and they feel like now it’s the only way to get a good grade,” says Walbran.
Studies have also pointed to the correlation of cheating and bad behavior in high schools. In 2015, Alain Chon and Michel Maréchal conducted an experiment with middle and high school students to test whether cheating predicts three types of school misconduct: disruptiveness in class, homework non-completion, and absenteeism. They found that students who cheat in the experimental task are more likely to misbehave at school.
This research has many asking what can be done to prevent students from cheating in the future.
“From a teacher’s perspective, anytime we can give an assessment where the student is required to show application or inquiry or collaboration or higher level learning, that generally is going to eliminate or at least cut down on cheating,” said Patrick Metzler, an AP & Honors Biology teacher at Indian Trail. “Some of it is on the teacher to redesign the assessments where it’s not just straight recall.”
Making and assigning multiple assessments could prevent students from spreading certain questions on a test to kids who take the test later in the day, said Herbrechtsmeier.
“I think ultimately students must realize the risks for cheating are not worth the ‘reward.’ Students who are caught cheating can lose the trust of their teachers, be suspended, lose academic honors, lose positions in the building in clubs and activities, etc. As online cheating becomes more prevalent, students need to understand that anything that undermines the integrity of the test will result in significant penalties,” said Anthony Casper, Indian Trail vice principal.
But the problem may not be student’s behavior or work ethic, pressure from parents, or the teachers – perhaps it’s how the educational system is set up.
“We need to shift our focus, going back to the learning versus getting things done,” said Christine King, a Spanish teacher at Indian Trail.“I think that as a school we need to focus on the learning aspect more than the grades, but unfortunately that will take a long time. It’s not just a procedural shift, but it’s a whole culture and a whole mind shift.”