Assignment Questions: Cheating Is A Ethical Decision Making

Most colleges and many high schools enforce an honor pledge. My school, Ridgeview, does not enforce an honor code and cheating is a huge problem. I personally have a problem with students wanting to cheat off my work, and I feel an honor pledge would reduce maybe even diminish that problem. Cheating has always been a big issue in school, but kids just keep doing and doing it, an honor pledge is in need. Ridgeview high school needs to enforce an honor pledge, because it would reduce cheating, punish those who do cheat and cheating is wrong.

Cheating comes with major consequences. Cheating in high school and college are two diverse things. Unlike High School if caught cheating the student doesn’t just receive a failing grade on the assignment and receive detention. Students fail the entire class, possible suspension or explosion. Depending on the college you are attending and their rules and consequences vary, in Jan Archer’s article “The Effects on Students Who Get Caught Cheating in College” it is explained that if caught cheating it goes onto your permanent record.

“Cheating teachers are on the rise as figures show the number illicitly helping children pass GCSE and A-level exams has trebled in the past two years” (Turner). The amount of stress standardized testing gives to one can cause this type of cheating on tests by teachers. Teachers feel all this pressure when they see they will get bonuses based on the scores their students receive and if they are not a good teacher they will have to improvise and manipulate the results just to get that one bonus they crave badly. “There were 388 penalties issued to school and college

Stereotypes are weapons that we can either use to help someone or we can use to hurt them. Most of the students who took my survey have been stereotyped by either race, grades, looks, relationships, and etc. I think us students and young adults have seen stereotypes as a bad thing, because no one really has used a stereotype in a good way and whenever you ask other students for an example of a stereotype it is either about race or gender at the school. Stereotypes have influenced students at high schools to do unthinkable things before, in our case at Dinuba High it influences students to not say anything about it or if they do, to make it seem like it was just a joke instead of a stereotype. The majority of the student’s in the class survey stated that if they don’t just ignore them or make a joke out of them they either confront them or they prove them wrong, which influences the stereotyper to leave them alone and shows people that they are more than just the label that they are so called “given”.

Students who are only trying to help others are being punished because they explain the work the way they understand it. The code is so strict that it gives no room for exceptions, which can ruin a student 's educational career if on a prime scale. In a survey of honor codes, 4 out of 7 did not have easy access to the honor code. In some cases It was hard to find on the homepage (Wade). If the schools expect the students to follow the honor code shouldn’t they have an easy access to it?

Standardized testing has become a very controversial topic amongst the nation. There are two sides, one that agrees that these tests are doing well for students and school officials, and another that argues that these tests are hurting the students taking them and should be put to a stop. Norman R. Augustine wrote an article for the need of standardized testing, and Jessie B. Ramey States the ways that the tests are impairing the learning capability of the students. Norman uses three arguments that people opposing the standardized test would most often use. The first is that these test encourages the teachers just to “teach the test”, but he ensures that, this is exactly what the teachers should be doing.

In Dudley Delvin’s “Plagiarism in America,” Delvin expresses his opinion about the growing plagiarism epidemic in America’s schools and presents a solution to correct the situation. The modern student body has begun to view plagiarism as a common practice since much of the information used is available instantaneously. Students often fail to see the issue of using another individual’s ideas as their own since the ideas are made public, allowing others to obtain the information. To solve the epidemic, Delvin proposes a solution that increases the surveillance of student work and incorporates zero tolerance policies that punish students for the use of plagiarism. Plagiarism has increased at rates proportionate to the advancements in technology.

The honor code is a system that many schools use to establish trust with teachers and students by having students report each other for cheating, plagiarizing, stealing, and getting consequences for violating those codes. I personally like the honor code but I believe it can be a little revised for the best. The part I think is too excessive is the students control each other. It may work in some schools but it could easily be corrupted. If you think about it many students are broke, a student could easily pay the other student to allow them to cheat or copy.

Sherry goes on and explains why we think it is right to sometimes excuse students who cheat the system because they come from terrible environments, but then goes on to conclude that “most kids don’t put school first on their list unless they perceive something else is at stake.” I think this is why there is a UIL rule at a lot of schools with a “no pass no play” policy. Students who are involved in extracurricular activities then have a reason to strive to pass. Sherry believes that “people of all ages can rise above their problems, but they need a reason to do so.” This is where failure comes in. Sherry proclaims that we need to recognize that this fear of failure is a positive teaching tool. To make this tool work, teachers and parents need to accept that if the student doesn’t learn the material, they must follow through with their promises of flunking.

A student that has never been reprimanded for cheating will continue to engage in the immoral behavior believing they can get away with it. Honor codes in which students receive disciplinary action for cheating increases the risk of doing so and causes students to be less likely to cheat. According to Dirmeyer and Cartwright, “each student will decide whether or not to cheat by weighing costs and benefits.” Since the chance of getting caught is greater with an honor code in effect, this impacts the costs of cheating and leads to more students being honest rather than a cheater creating a feedback loop. In this feedback loop the impression of not being a cheater increases causing there to be a greater expectation to not cheat thus those who are caught cheating appear worse. Honor codes and the feedback loop “generates the culture of trust and integrity that students value so highly (Dirmeyer and Cartwright).” Schools would positively benefit from enforcing honor codes and reinforcing the expectation to be academically