Several polls suggest youth today are more willing to cheat than their parents were, and they’re less likely to think there’s much wrong with it. With a rash of cheating scandals rocking various schools across the country, it looks like all those polls may be on to something.
Last month, several students at Chapel Hill (N.C.) High School were caught cheating: One used a master key to break into a teacher’s office and swipe an AP history test; another took a picture of an upcoming test with his cell phone. At a New Hampshire high school, students broke into a file cabinet to snag an AP math test; and at an elite school in Los Angeles, several students were suspended for distracting teachers in order to steal Spanish and history tests.
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“Academic misconduct is small potatoes in the moral domain, compared to murder, rape and drug abuse,” said Jason Stephens, an assistant professor of educational psychology at the University of Connecticut. “The cheating epidemic is kind of death by a thousand cuts. Ultimately, it undermines the self when the moral self should be growing.” (ABC News)