Leaders lead by setting the tone as much as by deciding policy, and specific strategies. Cheating is one area where trickle down is actually verifiable.

http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/public-corruption-higher-ever

So, in addition to bemoaning it, we really need to clean up our government and commerce by having a major accountability session. The judicial watch article only hints at how pervasive it is, what we can’t begin to count is the number of officials who are “cheating” and using the system to cover it up. White collar crime loses probably dwarf those totaled by the majority of people held in prisons today. Until we as a society decide to prosecute these crimes with the same zeal put into the war on drugs, then too many of our kids will see cheating as a very viable option. And, moral repugnance aside, how can you frame a winning argument against the actual examples that they see?

Can you conceive of a dying Marine saying to a corpsman, “Guess I had it comin’, Doc. I knew I shouldn’ta cheated in Basic”? Of course not! It’s unthinkable. Try to imagine Yo Yo Ma admitting in an interview that he achieved his position in Music by cheating. Or imagine Mark Wellman trying to figure out how to cheat his way to the top of El Capitan.

Sure, we’re perverse creatures and yes, the spirit and the flesh do vie, but still, everything worth doing is worth doing worthily.

We ought to help students to find things that they know are worth doing. When I teach the young but fail to do this, it is I who am unworthy.

As much as we want to believe in “comeuppance” the fact is that fate’s finger is fickle, and the current crop of public figures getting caught is probably only the tip of the iceberg. Like the large number of murders that never get solved, some cheaters prosper, some don’t.

Each year the Tour de France “cleans up” once and for all. Each year, people dope to win, despite the prior “lessons”. The trick, as someone said, is to find a way to change the balance of incentives, or adopt draconian proctoring.

Doesn’t American capitalism teach you that outcomes are the only thing that matters, regardless of what happens on the way from Point A to Point B? Youth is basically following the rules society set up for them and continues to embrace.

Good fucking luck, you guys. You may get away with cheating there in the ivory tower, but you’ll get a real wake-up call sooner than later out in the real world. You’ll try to cheat your boss…and you’ll lose. You’ll try to game your friends…and you’ll lose. You’ll cheat on your spouses…and you’ll lose. In the real world, cheating is followed by falling flat on your ugly faces. It may take years, but there’s a Randy Cunningham future for you all, and you’ll well deserve it…

This year, Linden High School is playing its trump card: Grade changes.

Students who test proficient or advanced on the state tests used by educators to judge a school’s academic success will earn an increase of an entire letter grade on their report card in math and English, Principal Stephanie Markle said.”
http://recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080419/A_NEWS/804190354/-1/rss01

Continuing the trend toward results not the process of learning.

Is it “cheating” to take words off the Internet?

UC Berkeley classes have asked students to take words from the Internet and put them in a paper WITHOUT CHEATING. A useful exercise. More useful, in my opinion, than punishing kids for taking words and phrases for the Internet and calling them “plagerists.”