TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES.

More than 70 percent of America's high school students admit they've cheated on exams. Are they only cheating themselves?

Forget for a minute just how many high school students cheat. Let's talk technique. Ivan Baumwell watched one friend print out the answers to a history test in tiny type and tape them inside her water bottle. Devon Watts pried apart her watch before an exam and slid a cheat sheet in front of the watch face. Lindsey Kleidman's classmates took tissues from their teacher's desk during a math test, so they could read the answer key upside down. But one method may set a new low in cheating creativity: Trevor Snell says he watched another student take advantage of his school's liberal eating-in-class policy by hollowing out an apple and stuffing answers to a physics test inside.

These students were among the dozens across the country whom UPFRONT asked for their experiences with cheating. Everyone interviewed said that cheating was widespread in their schools. The majority admitted cheating at some point themselves. Does that mean that their schools are isolated academic disaster areas? Hardly, according to a disturbing new report on cheating published this fall. It just makes them typical.

A national survey of 8,600 students released in October by the Josephson Institute of Ethics, an independent, nonprofit group in Marina del Rey, California, reveals what a cheating-happy culture high school has become: 71 percent of American teenagers admitted cheating on at least one exam within the last year, up from 60 percent in 1990; and 78 percent said they'd lied to a teacher. "That's a conservative estimate," says Michael Josephson, who directed the survey. "We know many of the students we questioned won't admit to cheating." How big does that make America's cheating problem? "Huge," Josephson says. "It's a hole in the moral ozone layer."

So why is America becoming a nation of cheaters? Is pressure to succeed at any cost taking the place of pride in one's accomplishments? Are too many teachers asleep at the wheel? Do public role models get caught cheating so often that the behavior begins to seem normal? Every student we spoke with has his or her own explanation. The only thing they agreed on was that cheating is everywhere.

Kent Petrino, 17, of Lake Brantley High in Altamonte Springs, Florida, blames clueless teachers. "They need to pay more attention if they want to stop students from cheating," he says. "A lot of kids are really obvious about cheating because they know they can get away with it."

Teachers, not surprisingly, reject this excuse. "It's true some teachers are oblivious," says Kent's government teacher, Judy Carrico. "But our job is to teach, not to police every student. I really think parents have to instill this in their kids. And kids need to monitor themselves. We have so much to do, we can't do it for them."

Hillary Caltagirone, 14, a student at Arlington High School in LaGrangeville, New York, blames cheating on the pressure of the college admissions process and the need to prepare for a competitive job market. "You have to do whatever you have to do to get ahead," she explains. "I'm going to go to college. I'm going to get a good job. If that means I have to copy a couple answers or go on the Internet and get some old essays, then that's what I'm going to do."

In fact, cheating may be most common among the nation's highest achievers. According to a 1998 survey by the publication Who's Who Among American High School Students, a whopping 80 percent of the nation's best students admit to having cheated on an exam. Michael Josephson thinks that's because today's students are struggling with tough questions about the right way to pursue success and the adults around them aren't offering clear answers. Josephson phrases the dilemma like this: "Do honest people prosper? Or do you become the best by becoming the best cheater?"

THE TOOL OF CHOICE

If you want to become a world-class cheater, the tool of choice is the World Wide Web. The almost limitless sea of information on the Internet makes plagiarizing easier than ever. And a smattering of Web sites with names like cheathouse.com cater to the demand for downloadable homework. Is that book report you haven't started on Moby Dick due tomorrow? Just point, click, and presto, you have a whale of an essay.

But the technology cuts both ways. Sophisticated online search engines make it possible to catch plagiarists with just a couple of keystrokes.

Take the case of this year's Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, a prestigious national competition that honors students' original creative work. Last spring, the winners gathered in Washington to receive their awards. One student wowed the crowd with a winning essay. The audience was impressed that a young student had written something so sophisticated. As it turned out, the student hadn't. A Scholastic employee had the nagging feeling he'd read the piece somewhere before. A few days later, he ran an online search and found the student's winning entry had been copied word-for-word from another writer. The student was stripped of the award and kicked out of the school's honor society.

Then another student stepped forward, and confessed that a second winning story was plagiarized. This person, too, was stripped of the award. "I didn't feel like doing an English assignment," the student explains, "so I found this story online and printed it out. My teacher said she really liked it and entered it for the award. I figured it wouldn't win, and nobody would ever find out. But when all this came out it was horrible. It was the worst thing I've ever been through in my life. I used to think cheating wasn't a big deal. But getting caught cheating changed my mind about that."

Next year, Scholastic plans to screen all of the winners for originality. B.J. Adler, executive director of the Art and Writing Awards, says the plagiarism was wrong, but it wasn't really surprising. "With all the free information flying around the Internet, maybe the idea of original work is becoming blurry," she says.

Have popular culture and the Internet changed our perception of original work? Music-sharing services like Napster make copyrighted creations seem like public property. Rap artists sample liberally from other musicians' songs, creating new art from old.

Yet copyright law, if not morality, seems to be catching up with the new technology. Napster, facing lawsuits from major recording companies, recently agreed to begin charging for its services and sharing the profits with musicians. Rappers who sample are required to pay for the work they borrow. Moreover, using a sample as part of a new song, like using a quote in a research paper, is a far cry from lifting someone else's work wholesale and without attribution.

TEENS KNOW BETTER

"The ability to copy a computer disk or trade a song on Napster might make the idea of original work hard for young children to understand," Josephson says. "But by the time they're teenagers, it's easy enough to know the difference between stealing and creating."

Yet students still do it and risk punishments including parental notification, suspension, even an automatic failing grade. In addition, are there any long-term consequences of these shortcuts? "Of course there are," says Lake Brantley student Laura Mills, 17, echoing the sentiment of several classmates. "Cheaters are just cheating themselves out of skills they need. I had to test out for my lifeguard training. If I'd cheated on my test, I wouldn't be prepared to deal with life-and-death decisions."

Josephson agrees. "Do we really want the next generation of paramedics and airplane pilots and nuclear-missile designers to be people who cheated their way through school?" he asks. Instead, he cautions students to resist taking the easy road, no matter how much they want to succeed. "Studies show that cheating begins a pattern of dishonesty that can stay with you your whole life--from sharing answers on an exam, to lying on a resume, to cheating in a relationship.

"The problem with winning the rat race," Josephson says, quoting a line from comedian Lily Tomlin, "is that when the race is over, you're still a rat."

RELATED ARTICLE: Numbers Don't Lie

The grade on cheating is in, and teens are getting an A for effort. The Josephson Institute recently released preliminary results of its Report Card on the Ethics of American Youth, showing that lying and cheating seem to be a way of life for many of the 8,600 high school students who were surveyed nationwide. Since 1992, the institute has issued a report card every two years, and the percentages have risen every time. Here's the 2000 breakdown of the percent of students who said they had done the following in the past 12 months.

Lied to parents at least once: 92% Twice or more: 79%

Lied to teacher at least once: 78% Twice or more: 58%

Would lie to get a job: 27%

Cheated on exam at least once: 71% Twice or more: 45%

Stolen something from a store: 40% (males), 30% (females)

Note: The survey's margin of error is +/- 3%.

RELATED ARTICLE: CHEATERS' HALL OF SHAME

From finding the sneakiest places to stash cheat sheets to mastering the most sophisticated shortcuts available on the Internet, these days there are almost as many ways to cheat as there are cheaters. "Imagine if we could harness all the creativity that students put into thinking up these different techniques," says ethics expert Michael Josephson. "America could have the highest-achieving students on earth."

UPFRONT readers told us how cheating takes place in their schools-and the creativity was extraordinary, if misdirected. (Lest you take this information the wrong way, be warned that all of these methods have been detected by teachers.) Many wrote that the tried-and-true tricks are still the most common, like choosing a seat next to someone smart during a test. "The one I use the most is the one where you write on a paper that already has writing on it, and blend your notes in," says Jenny Bochman. "You just set the paper on your desk during a test and there you go, you have an A."

We also learned some unique places to stash a cheat sheet, from the side of a sneaker to a see-through pen. "One of the more ingenious ideas I've seen is to post a cheat sheet in a bathroom stall and ask for a bathroom pass during a test," says Candi Archer.

"Before a history test," writes Melissa Anthen, "one girl in my class wrote notes on the back of a soda label and glued it back on the bottle. During the test, she drank just enough soda to uncover her notes."

Several students reported exchanging answers on multiple-choice tests with their calculators' displays. And others said they stored formulas in the calculators' memories to use during tests.

A few readers say they are just beginning to tap the potential of the Internet. "I just found this cool translation site on the Web," writes one reader. "I had an essay assignment for my Spanish class. I wrote it in English. They translated it. And my teacher never knew the difference."

But no matter how clever the technique, nothing is foolproof. "I caught one student who wrote a cheat sheet on Saran Wrap, in brown ink so it would match his desk," says Greg Clark, a history teacher at Arlington High. "I had to laugh. For all the time and effort he put into cheating, it would have been easier just to learn the material." -- DOR 

Truth or Consequences

FOCUS: Why Student Cheating Is on the Rise

TEACHING OBJECTIVES

To help students understand the growing incidence of cheating in American schools, the reasons behind it, and how some students rationalize cheating.

Discussion Questions:

* Explain how each of the following influences a student's decision to cheat in school: (1) parents who don't teach ethical behavior; (2) teachers who are oblivious to cheating; (3) perceived pressure to succeed at any cost; (4) peers who condone cheating.

* Is there a difference between cheating on school work and, say, cheating on taxes or cheating in sports?

* Is the cliche "If you cheat, you're only cheating yourself" really true?

CLASSROOM STRATEGIES

Critical Thinking: Discuss the concept of original work. What is the difference between quoting another's ideas as a source in a research paper and taking another's work to present as your own? How does one use expert opinion to back up one's own thesis without plagiarizing?

Michael Josephson says one reason for student cheating is that adults are not offering clear answers about the right way to pursue success. Is Josephson correct? If so, what should adults be teaching teens that they are not? Does this analysis let teen cheaters off the hook?

Debate: Have students defend and oppose these arguments: "Cheating is no big deal because--." * "Everyone does it." * "There's too much pressure to get good grades." * "I'm not hurting anyone."

Next, switch from abstract discussion to a real-life test. What would students do in the following situation:

* You find a preliminary draft of a test in a school hallway. Since the test is not a final version, is it ethical to use it as a guide to help focus your preparation?

Critical Thinking/Writing: Ask students to suppose they work at the Josephson Institute. Have them identify an institution--education, entertainment, business, government, or some other--that sometimes behaves unethically. Have students write essays in which they explain why the institution they chose could use some ethical refurbishing.

Web Watch: See page TE 8 for Web sites you can use to identify plagiarism.