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.

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.

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”.

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? Students should be able to view the honor code whenever they want to guarantee that they are not breaking any rules.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

Most teachers think students cheat because they don’t want to take the test but click on this website and read its called Stress, Anxiety Causes Us to Cheat by Natalie Shoemaker (Will be added at the bottom of my paper). Instead of holding are diploma against us the district or schools should just give bigger rewards to the passing students like prizes so that way it takes some of the pressure off. Another idea is maybe only make the kids who are failing take the test because as long as a student is passing there classes I don’t see why that alone isn’t proof enough that they understand the material. I know teachers use standardized testing to determine how much a student has learned and how to make learning other material more effective but if a student is turning in their

Unfortunately, some teachers are more lenient than other when applying this rule. There is an inconsistency with the punishment of some cheating instances over others. For example, Laurel has strict rules on cheating on standardized tests. Because there is such a huge spotlight public schools to perform well on standardized testing, administrators take extra precaution to avoid any incidents that may blemish their appearance, such as a student caught cheating, thus invalidating the test scores of every other student in the area. While this is an effective protocol, it should also be applied in areas outside of testing, like homework for example.

Most teachers have great relationships with their students and want them to succeed. Some students struggle and end up cheating. Having an Honor Code would destroy these resected student-teacher relationships non existent due to the fact that students would have to tell on other students. The balance that had been established would be destroyed and could never be recovered. Having an Honor Code will fracture the trust that students have with teachers.

This allows for children to grow up believing that they can cheat and get away with it. These children then spread this ideology to their friends who are also beginning to think it is okay to cheat. All these children are therefore growing up believing that it is okay to cheat; they then teach their own children that cheating is an acceptable behavior. This results in a national decline in integrity because the upcoming generations are being raised with the ideology that it is appropriate for them to

People wonder what is so wrong with cheating or plagiarism. As long as they get the work done or pass the course. But do these students know the real consequences of cheating and plagiarism. Viewing different people aspect of this problem, this happens everywhere. In Brent Staples article “Cutting and Pasting: A senior thesis by (Insert Name)”, he is trying to get through to individuals so that they could stop doing this and the consequences.