Students Caught Cheating


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Submitted by Daniel Vergara on Tue, 07/10/2012 - 7:24am.

My father recently informed me during one of our conversations about how he heard a story on the radio about a group of high school students in a New York area school used their smartphones to cheat on a state exam. With this in mind, I was curious to read and learn more about the story as I found it interesting and relevant to the EdLab. To my surprise, the school was Stuyvesant High School in lower Manhattan, one of the country’s most prestigious public schools. The situation apparently came to light after one of the students had their phone confiscated and in the process school officials discovered he had messages and pictures with answers to the test that he had shared through text messages.

There are several items up for debate in terms of the punishment for the students caught cheating such as whether they should retake the courses. What is even more surprising is the fact that this is not the first time this has occurred as Stuyvesant has been having this same problem for some years, which leaves you thinking whether students have been really learning. The advancement of technology has made it easier for students to cheat these days and this, coupled with the idea that it serves as a distraction on school grounds, is one of the main reasons why the NYC’s Department of Education does not allow cellphones in schools.

Is technology the sole reason for this trend among students and what are some possible solutions?

Posted in Public | Daniel Vergara's blog | login or register to post comments »

Carmel Addae Says:
Fri, 07/13/2012 - 8:24am

Danny, I have one question though, if electronics are abandoned in schools, then how were the students at Stuyvesant able to enter the building with their cellphones? It seems the lack of oversight by school administrators is to partially blame for this scandal.

Oumar Soumahoro Says:
Wed, 07/11/2012 - 6:18am

Daniel, this story seems to occur every year after state exams. But I am more amazed by the fact that this happened at Stuyvesant due to its prestige as one of our country's finest high schools. I think the Dept of Ed not allowing electronic devices on school grounds is the best way to avoid such future instances.

Jeffrey Hado Says:
Tue, 07/10/2012 - 11:49pm

I strongly believe these students need to be expelled from the school because without a serious punishment of such, they wouldn't know the how big of a deal it is. Also, this would definitely let their professors question their integrity throughout the entire school year.

Francisco Mendoza Says:
Mon, 07/16/2012 - 1:30am

This is probably exactly what they deserve. I have a feeling that the school hasn't expelled the students and won't, because the school would look a lot worse than what it already does. If the school has a lot of students failing and not passing any of their classes the school would no longer be considered one of the best schools to study in. I doubt the principle is willing to take that risk, which is why I believe that the students aren't being expelled.

Duncan Asiedu Says:
Tue, 07/10/2012 - 11:27pm

It always amazes me when cheaters access a situation and come to a conclusion that the reward is higher than the risk. In this case, they saw the possibility of getting high regents grades higher than the risk of being caught and being on national news.

Haymar Lim Says:
Tue, 07/10/2012 - 10:03pm

Here's a follow up article to the incident.

What Ben said is exactly right. While it may be true for some of the students, I don't believe what Rebecca said is truly the case. Most students at Stuyvesant mock the regents exams for their easy difficulty. In some cases, the results of the exams aren't even factored into our final grades. For example, the English department has a policy of not counting the regents exam. The history department counts the regents as a single test. The only reason one would really cheat on the regents is to have a perfect score show up on their transcript. Fortunately for the community but in this case unfortunately for the individual, the bright student body just makes it tougher for smart but not "super genius" kids to get into top tier colleges.

Francisco Mendoza Says:
Tue, 07/10/2012 - 5:53pm

Daniel, I really enjoyed reading this blog. This has happened several of times and in different schools as well. My question is did the people that confiscated the phone have the right to go through the cellphone? Is there not some type of privacy? Also, I heard in the news on this same case that the students caught in the act will just have to retake the test, nothing about retaking the class I don't think that would of been fair since they didn't get caught cheating the whole year it was just one day. It'll be questioned if they did cheat but there's no proof.

Fred Rossoff Says:
Tue, 07/10/2012 - 4:53pm

I'd like to hear Hui Soo weigh in on the issue of cheating at Stuyvesant.

Hui Soo Chae Says:
Wed, 07/11/2012 - 5:38am

Cheating at Stuyvesant? Unthinkable!

Rebecca Hyams Says:
Tue, 07/10/2012 - 9:05am

I wonder what the relationship is between cheating and the push for these kids to get into super competitive colleges, because I'm assuming there's a direct correlation there. Whenever I see stories like this I can't help but think that these kids care far more about their grades than actually learning anything, and they'll do it by any means possible.

Scott Khamphoune Says:
Wed, 07/11/2012 - 5:05pm

In my experience, it's almost never the under-performing students that cheat but rather the very high-performing students. A similar incident happened when I was in high school and the student caught actually had one of the higher GPAs in our school. I think given the increasing pressure to get into a prestigious college, more and more students with high GPAs cheat because they feel like they have the most to lose.

Haymar Lim Says:
Thu, 07/12/2012 - 7:02am

Yeah you're probably right. At Stuyvesant, there's always an unspoken pressure on students to get into a top tier school like the Ivies, even though they don't take too many kids from it. The kids who typically get in have 96+ un-weighted averages and those kids might have felt they needed to cheat to remain competitive.