Integrity In Our Schools
that nearly a fifth of her biology students had plagiarized their
semester projects from the Internet.
She had received her rural Kansas district's backing before when she
accused students of cheating, and she expected it again this time
after failing the 28 sophomores. Her principal and superintendent
agreed: It was plagiarism and the students should get a zero for
the assignment.
But after parents complained, the Piper School Board ordered
her to go easier on the guilty.
Pelton resigned in protest in an episode that some say reflects a
national decline in integrity.
"This kind of thing is happening every day around the country, where
people with integrity are not being backed by their organization," said
Michael Josephson, founder and president of the Josephson Institute
of Ethics in Marina del Rey, Calif. Josephson pointed to the Enron
bankruptcy scandal, in which an executive whistle-blower had warned
superiors about the potential consequences of energy trader's
off-the-books business deals.
Also in recent months, some of the nation's top historians, including
Stephen Ambrose, have been accused of borrowing passages from
other authors without proper credit. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian
Joseph Ellis was suspended without pay for a year from Mount
Holyoke College after lying to his students about serving in Vietnam.
Notre Dame University football coach George O'Leary resigned after
falsifying his athletic and academic achievements on his resume.
"It's so hard to keep sending the message that character counts when
you have officials saying it doesn't count that much," Josephson said.
In Piper, about 20 miles west of Kansas City, Mo., students got that
message loud and clear, Pelton said.
"The students no longer listened to what I had to say," she said. "They
knew if they didn't like anything in my classroom from here on out,
they can just go to the school board and complain."
Piper High School junior Brandon Schmalz, 17, agreed. "That was
bad. She was right, and they were wrong," Schmalz said of the board.
Pelton, 26, resigned days after the board ordered her to give the
students partial credit and to decrease the project's value from
50 percent of the final course grade to 30 percent.
Board president Chris McCord did not give a reason for the Dec. 11
decision, which was made behind closed doors. He said it was not
prompted by parents' complaints. "If I had known all the publicity
that would have come with this, I would still make the same decision,"
McCord said.
One of the complaining parents was Theresa Woolley, who told The
Kansas City Star that her daughter did not plagiarize. Rather, her
daughter was not sure how much she needed to rewrite research
material, she said.
But Pelton said the course syllabus, which she required students to
sign, warned of the consequences of cheating and plagiarism.
Rutgers University professor of management Donald McCabe, who
has researched academic dishonesty in high schools and colleges, said
many teachers ignore cheating, and the Kansas episode illustrates why.
"Parents are going to complain to principals and the school board,
and teachers feel there's no reason to believe they'll get support,"
said McCabe, whose study of high school students in 2000-01 found
that 74 percent had cheated or plagiarized during the prior year.
What is worse, McCabe said, is that tolerance of dishonesty
disheartens other students, who have to compete with the cheaters
to get into college. "If they see teachers looking the other way, students
feel compelled to participate even though it makes them
uncomfortable," McCabe said. "The loss of that sense of fairness is
the fundamental reason students cheat."
In Kansas, at least a dozen teachers have said they plan to leave the
district after the school year because of the episode, said Lee
Quisenberry, a teachers union representative.
"You can get away with anything whether you're honest or not,
"Pelton said. The board's decision hurt "the honest people, and that's
the worst thing about it."
Then he made school boards.
Mark Twain
What Has Happened To Integrity?
self-respect? Words that seem to have disappeared from too many
people's vocabulary and values that seem to be less and less evident
every day. These were words and values that we were taught from
childhood, not only in the home and church but also in the schools.
I can remember my dad buying a car on a handshake and his word
of honor. We knew from the beginning of elementary school what
cheating was and that if we cheated in school, we would be in much
greater trouble when we got home. We also said the pledge of
allegiance and had devotions in home room, before beginning our
classes for the day and I don't know of anyone who was ever
harmed by it. It was a calmimg way to start the day.
The above news article is just one of many examples of the lack of
these values today not just in schools but in society in general. I find it
hard to believe that a high school student would not understand the
simple instruction that his work is to be "IN YOUR OWN WORDS".
A student does not earn a grade for a book report by copying the
summary on the book jacket. I find it harder to believe that these
sophomores were so naive as to think that they could copy something
from the internet and pass it off as their own work without being
caught. I find it shocking that the parents supported them by going
to the school board and openly admitting that their children did not
understand such a simple instruction. I find it appalling that ANY
school board would support such a complaint!
I commend the principal and the superintendent for their integrity
and support of the teacher. I congratulate the 17 year old who is
apparently much wiser than many students because he had the nerve
and INTEGRITY to speak out in the teacher's defense. I commend
the teacher who tried to teach these students a much greater lesson
than any to be learned in a a biology class - a lesson in integrity which
they might have carried with them the rest of their lives. I regret that
those students who had the integrity to do their own work and who
would have had a much better grade with the project counting 50%
had to suffer for an unwise and unfair judgment.
A few questions remain - If and when these students go to college, are
they still going to run to their mommies when a professor catches them
cheating and they are kicked out for it? Do the mommies really think
they can go to the colleges and fight the battles for them? Do they
really think the colleges will change grading policies for them?
If you as parents want to complain....
promotion" in the elementary schools and your child is passed along
without knowing how to read. The school's justification for this is
simply that you can't keep those "big old should be" second graders
in with the little first graders!
COMPLAIN when your child is in the fifth grade and YOU, for the
first time, realize that he can't read. Then ask yourself, where was
I and what was I doing that it took ME this long to find out that my
child can't read? Complain and do something about it to ensure that he
doesn't get through the sixth grade still not knowing how to read!
COMPLAIN and DO something about the teacher who is selling drugs
to your child and do something about the teacher who is using drugs.
COMPLAIN and do something about the principal who reprimands
one student for walking across the lawn but lets a "jock" cut across it
and the reprimanded student is taken to the office and has his head
banged into the wall because he politely dared to question the principal.
Complain and do something about the teacher who makes sexual
remarks to any student.
Complain and DO something about the teacher who is making
improper advances or taking indecent liberties with any student.
Complain and do something about the teacher who puts a student
down in any way in front of a class.
Complain when the school system uses letter grades rather than
number grades because it means that the pupil who has done nothing
and would have a "0" has the same grade as the child who tried and
got a grade equivalent to "74" - only one point away from passing.
An "F" one semester and an "A" the next will average out to a "C" which
allows a student to pass for the year having done only half the work,
but a "0" and "100" will average out to "50".
Complain about the principal that has a teacher change a student's
conduct grade because her mommie complained. After all this was a
National Honor Society member and the teacher had only called her
down four times for doing her chemistry homework for her next class
in her Spanish class. It is my belief that an honor student should know
which class she is in!
Complain and do something about the teacher who spends 3/4 of a
class period talking about how rotten ALL Germans are and
preaching her hate message to the class and then looks over at a
student whom she knows is German and calmly says, "I hope that you
realize that there is nothing personal in this". That student walks into
her next class with tears streaming down her face and tells that teacher
what has happened and ask "How much more personal can it be
when she knew that I am German?" This student's parents were the
head of the local Salvation Army and some of the most wonderful
people you could ever meet.
Complain and do something about the assistant-principal who
harasses a teacher during a teacher's work day to pass a student
because he needs the class to stay on the wrestling team. This student
had only been caught three times for cheating in the six-weeks period.
He only disrupted class by trying to make something dirty out of
anything that was said. The principal guarenteed the teacher that if the
student was passed he would see that this student stayed in the same class.
When this was not agreeable with the teacher, the principal
passed the student and put him in a different class.
Complain and do something if your child has had no grade below a 98
for two years in a foreign language class but at the end of the second
year is not able to show up for the exam and is flunked without a
chance to make it up. The passing grade in the school was 75 but if a
student's grade was a 74 it had to be raised or lowered a point
because a 74 was too questionable. Without the exam the student's
grade was 74.75 but the teacher was not allowed to raise it that one
little 1/4 point! (This and the other two incidents above took place in
the same school!) A sad state of affairs indeed!!!!!!!!!!!
Complain and do something if your child meets all the requirements for
National Honor Society but is kept out because he has been in a
rehab center for drug abuse while there are other students in the NHS
who got there with a "little help from their friends" - otherwise
known as cheating.
I would urge EVERY parent to attend PTA meetings, parent-teacher
conferences, booster club meetings, activities in which your child is a
participant etc. and find out what is going on in your child's school. Ask
your child how his day was, what he learned in school, what homework he
has and see that he does the work. Read to your child long before he ever
starts school and buy him books, not some cheap plastic junk toy that will
be broken in two days. When he is in first grade, listen to HIM read. Help
him with his homework when he hits a snag but DO NOT do all his work
for him. Chances are that some day you won't be able to do the work for
him and his true ability will show.
As a teacher for 33 years, it was my experience that the parents who really
needed to attend parent-teacher conferences were the ones who never
showed up. For the most part, the parents who attended the conferences
were the parents of students who made the A's & B's and never got into
trouble at school. Even when teachers sent letters to parents with whom
they really needed to talk concerning their children's progress or behavior,
most of these parents never made it to the conferences.
I hear complaints constantly about how education standards have dropped
and questions about what has happened to our schools. Years ago when
there was talk of integration, there were also many complaints because
everyone just knew that when it happened, the education standards surely
would drop. It WAS NOT integration that lowered the standards, but
school systems that did not keep the same standards and expect the same
quality work from each student. Many school systems found it easier not to
expect too much of students so there would not be so many complaints
from parents. Incidents like the examples and news article above are
perfect examples of things which have lowered the educational standards.
The grading scale was changed so that more students would have "A's" and
fewer would fail; it makes the school system look better. It used to be that
to get an "A" a student had to have a 95 and an "F" was 75; now an "A" is
93 and an "F" is 70.
I noticed the greatest change in education and a decline in manners, and
values when prayer was taken out of the public schools. When I was in
high school, we had different religions. In addition to the various Protestant
and Catholic religion, we also had the Jewish and Greek represented and
we had our devotional period. Nowadays, locally we have many people of
other nationalities such as Japanese, Indian, Korean, Vietnamese, Spanish,
Italian, Philippinos, Lebanese and Chinese. We have an annual Colors Day
Celebration in town at which time everyone dresses in their native attire,
and there are native crafts, foods and dances for all to enjoy. Wouldn't it
be wonderful in our "enlightened age" if the schools could also have a
devotional period and learn a little about the different religions to better
understand the various cultures? I think that September 11, 2001 is proof
that we need more understanding and less judgement of others simply
because they are on a different spiritual path.
It is seldom that we hear positive things about teen-agers and schools
today. The article below which is a sharp contrast to the first article on
this page is a very positive side of both a school and five exceptional young
ladies who are members of the varsity basketball team. All are to be commended
for their integrity in supporting the coach and for bringing a serious problem
in the community to everyone's attention. What a coach to stick to the rules
when it means losing five of her leading players for the rest of the season!
(used with permission of the author)
As an editorial in the Caledonia-Record of St. Johnsbury, Vermont put it:
"Friday night five teen-age girls at Danville High School became five
young adults, and they did so with class," I thought you'd like to know
the story.
The Friday night in question was January 11, 2002. The setting was a
packed gymnasium just prior to the start of the varsity game. The five
girls were members of the Danville High School basketball team - four
of them were starters. They weren't in uniform to play that night and
won't be for the remainder of the season. They were there to explain
why they had been kicked off the team.
They were there to own a serious infraction of team rules. They were
there to support their coach's decision to take them off the team. They
were there to let the town know there was a problem in their little
community that needs to be addressed. And they did it with
appropriate contrition rather than defensiveness.
While school had been out for Christmas and New Year's holidays,
the girls had gone to a party with several of their friends. It was New
Year's Eve. There was alcohol there. And the five girls drank some.
Coach Tammy Rainville has a zero-tolerance rule on drugs and alcohol
for members of her team. Every kid who plays for her knows the rule.
So when classes resumed after the break and accounts of the holiday
parties were shared, rumors about the five girls began closing in on
them. Coach Rainville didn't have to confront them, for they got together
and decided to go to her with the full story. The coach said she couldn't
back down on her policy. And the players - two juniors and three
seniors - agreed!
That Friday night in the gym was part of their public support of the
coach's decision. One of the seniors spoke last. "We hope you will
understand that we are not bad kids. We made a mistake... What we
did was definitely not worth it. We hope this event will make everyone
open their eyes and realize that there is a big drug and alcohol problem
in our community." she said. "And if you work with us to try to solve
this problem, you will help us feel that we have not been thrown off
our basketball team for nothing." The five left the floor to deafening
applause. The Danville High School girls basketball team may not
win another game this year, but they've learned something about
personal responsibility, the effect of one's actions on others and
integrity that will serve them well throughout life.
Rubel Shelly has preached for the Woodmont Hills Church of Christ
in Nashville since 1978. During that time, he has also taught at David
Lipscomb University and Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
He is the author of more than twenty books, including several which
have been translated into other languages such as Korean, Japanese,
Portuguese, French and Russian.
Marilyn's Hideaway ~
Cancer Site ~
Children ~
Computers
Critters ~
Domestic Violence ~
Good Old Days ~
Holidays
Humor ~
Inspirationals ~
Katrina ~
Miscellaneous
Patriotic ~
Poetry ~
Women ~
Norma Marek's Poetry
