Every time there's an article like this--like the one about ADD meds used for test prep and taking--I ask my daughter, a rising junior at Brooklyn Tech, about it. Yes, she says, some kids cheat, some kids take ADD meds and buy and sell them. But no, not everyone.

Kids cheated on Regents when I went to high school, and I graduated in 1966! And kids took diet pills too.

It's embarrassing for the smartest kids in the city to cheat on a regents exam that people could pass in their sleep.

They caught 70 kids cheating. It is pretty widespread. The penalty for most is retaking the test honestly. If you cheat successfully, you get a better score than you deserve. If you get caught, then you retake the test like everyone else. This is no penalty.
It is a disgrace that this happened at the most prestigious school in the city. It is unfair to all those students who took the test honestly.

One student, Nayeem Ashan, photographed Regents exams on his phone while he was taking them and email blasted them. Then he claimed he did it because he thought he had cancer. Which... doesn't make any sense. The students who received the email had to retake the exam. Who knows if the recipients used the answers or not, the student in question obviously has 'issues', and so the administration made the other students who were recipients of the email retake the exam.

It only takes one week of school for students to fall behind; and after one month, most kids are floundering; and to survive start cheating. Read THE SILENT CRISIS DESTROYING AMERICA'S BRIGHTEST MINDS by Sharon Rose Sugar. http:/www.treeofknowledgepress.com

I really appreciated Beth Fertig's remarks on WNYC's Brian Lehrer today. I agree with the caller who suggested that test prep (and probably other ways in which we "help" students) might result in students who find themselves in over their heads. They might be able to do the work on their own but don't know how to go about it.
None of these cheating stories are new. The technology used is of course, but not the impulse or activity. People cheat because they want a short cut. We are living in a culture of short cuts.
http://heresheisboys.com/2012...

I know the shock value of this happening at Stuy High is great, but why? Kids cheat everywhere. Often not because they are horrible teenagers but because they are too lazy not to cheat, too over stressed with other work or areas of their lives to prepare for, say, Regents tests, or because they think they are smarter than the testing process and get away with it. Or because like everyone else in America, they want instant gratification. This story is not new in public school, private school, college, and grad schools. Where do students learn to cheat? From our society which in so many ways turns a blind eye to a lot of cheating in every aspect of life. The thing is getting caught is good: it's good because maybe some student somewhere will say, "Those people got caught. Maybe I should just go study for the test the vast majority of it's takers".

I graduated from Stuyvesant in 1997, and at that time, cheating was certainly part of the zeitgeist. I knew of someone, for instance, who had the answers to what was then called an SATII beeped to them from the telephones in the basement. The people I know who cheated went on to be doctors who followed the hippocratic oath to the letter, lawyers, who worked diligently for due process and fairness, writers, teachers, etc. There was certainly a haughtiness about certain types of exams. Indeed, we turned up our noses and couldn't be bothered by Regents or multiple choice finals. We had too much other studying to do, too many papers to write. Too many extracurriculars and clubs to attend.

My own impression of Stuyvesant was that students' intellect called for a higher order thinking that was not supplied by the curricula, for the most part. Students ran circles around many of their teachers (with famous, beloved, and notable exceptions), and did not have much respect for the mundanity of memorization. We needed bigger ideas and questions that complicated our thinking and helped us to synthesize information, not store and regurgitate. Kids would cheat on the test and read Kierkegaard on their free periods. Get the picture? Come to think of it, there was far less cheating, in my experience, in English classes than there was in history, science, math...

My son graduated from Stuyvesant in the late 90's. While he had an overall good experience there, the competitive culture was overwhelming, perhaps a bit toxic, and not just among the students. A few examples:
At the first parent orientation, one of the science classrooms was SRO and I was only able to stand in the doorway to hear what was being said. A parent literally lowered her head and pushed into my stomach (hard) to force her way past me (and others) to get entrance into the room!

While there, my son knew of some kids who lived in New Jersey but had "addresses" in New York. In at least one case, a parent's work address was used. So that student's cheating began from Day One, and that child took the place of a New Yorker who was the next one on the list.

There were also kids that got classified with a learning disability in order to get extra time on tests and so on. Apparently, this information is not listed on transcripts when one applies to college, so one could easily gain an advantage, with no down side.

When my son was sick, students would hesitate to tell him what he missed in class--"Why should I raise your GPA? That only lowers mine!" That is an actual quote.

While he made great friends there and has the status of calling himself a Stuy Grad for life, I can happily report he didn't buy into the aggressive culture much (I think he had a B or B- average). He got great SAT's, went to a good college, and is a high school teacher himself today in a very progressive school district.

I am a retired art teacher and currently teach college classes in art and art education. I can say that the current generation has a different ethical outlook for the most part than mine does. The students think nothing of downloading music and other content without paying, xeroxing copyrighted material and "borrowing" from Wikipedia without giving credit (or fact-checking).

It's easy to cheat if teachers give take home exams or multiple choice tests. Essay tests take a long time to grade and portfolio assessment is even more work.

When the point of taking a class is to "get through it," cheating is an efficient, if unethical option. If one is actually interested in mastery of a subject, however, it unnecessary. I tell my students that a quiz or test is a tool to find out where their gaps in knowledge and thinking are and what we need to work on. It's the process of learning that is, and should be, joyous.

SchoolBook posts this comment on behalf of reader, Lori Pandolfo:

As a past Co-president of the Stuyvesant PA during the aftermath 9/11 disaster years, I have some experience with the administration and their running of the school.

1) It was a DOE mandate to ban cell phones and that rule was followed in lock step without regard to the special situation of our students who were forced to run for their lives on 9/11 and then return to a toxic environment only 3 weeks later.

2) I am surprised that so far only the principal has "retired/resigned." The DOE really needs to look into the adults who ultimately must be considered responsible due to their poor oversight and controls.

3) I guess the school wide policy of tying grades, in part, to the Regents exam grade may have been a strong incentive to cheat. The education of the students is judged solely by the performance of the students, rather than any measurement of what the students gain from their education aside from student achievements and awards.

In my time in PA leadership we had to have grades corrected for an entire grade of students due to errors in that year's Regents exam in Physics. As with many other matters more important than grades (health and safety), parents and students worked to convince the administration (who resigned/retired now due to this scandal) that the correction was due. We were lucky to have dedicated and capable parents willing to put in the time and effort to manage these issues as they arose.

There should always be responsibility taken by those adults who are charged with the care of students. School is supposed to serve students by fostering education. It is not up to the students to serve the administrators' and the overly cherished school's reputation, by performing well and gaining awards and accolades on behalf of their school.