A startling new study from the Josephson Institute, an ethics think tank in Los Angeles, reveals that 64 percent of today’s high school students report having cheated on a test in the past year and about a third of students reported they plagiarized material from the Web and passed it off as their own, according to Fox News.
This story is truly shocking because our students are cheating like crazy and yet they still stink. U.S. students rank 29th, behind countries like Croatia, the Czech Republic, and Liechtenstein in science and math. Liechtenstein!?
At least when the New England Patriots cheated they won three freaking Super Bowls. Roger Clemens is still sporting his World Series rings. Ain’t nobody taking them away no matter how juiced up he was. Barry Bonds is still the home run king.
But America’s children are cheating and they’re losing. Bad! They are the Floyd Landis generation. You remember him, right? He juiced to win the Tour De France and he’s got nothing to show for it. That guy had more testosterone running through his veins than Bruce Banner having a bad day. And now I think the rider from Liechtenstein is officially ahead of him in the standings.
Either our children start actually studying or cheat a lot better. Dumb and incompetent is a dangerous combination. We must expect more from the next generation.
*This post is not to be taken seriously. CMR has a strong stance against cheating in school despite what Patrick’s permanent record says.
December 4, 2008 at 3:12 am
“…64 percent of today’s high school students report having cheated on a test in the past year and about a third of students reported they plagiarized material from the Web and passed it off as their own,…”
No surprise they’re failing, really. When dumb students cheat off of other dumb students, they’re going to give dumb answers. And how much do you want to bet the website most being plagiarized is Wikipedia, the great bastion of “accurate” information?
December 4, 2008 at 4:26 am
Dang!
December 4, 2008 at 4:29 am
My HS German teacher always said if students spent as much time studying as they did figuring out ways to cheat, they’d get better grades. (and actually learn something)
December 4, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Jeremy,
it sounds like your teacher was using that whole idea of logical thinking again. Very dangerous, indeed. 🙂
December 4, 2008 at 2:58 pm
So what if you’re behind a country like Croatia. Croats are extremely smart and you should not be ashamed of yourself. Some of those extremely smart Croats even read your blog 😉
December 4, 2008 at 2:58 pm
I had teachers who said stuff like that too. One nun told about a kid who had worked so hard to make a cheat sheet he could hide in his calculator, and because he’d worked so hard making it (tiny writing, etc.) he actually knew all the info, but he still brought it and she failed him on the test. According to her, he became a bum, but a lot of her stories about people seemed to end that way, so I cannot confirm the veracity.
I am worried because of all the resume padding that happens. I did a lot of things in undergrad, volunteering, a job and a heavier class load than a lot of people, and while I do frame things in the best light, I don’t lie about them. It’s so bad my dad’s first interview at a place this week didn’t talk to him much but had him do a bunch of tests to make sure he’s actually competent and not lying about his expertise. 🙁
I went to an honor system college, which was great because you knew your grades meant something, and you could leave your bookbag outside the cafeteria, etc. I can only remember a handful of exams that were proctored the entire four years. Getting back out into the ‘real world’ is quite different…
December 4, 2008 at 3:02 pm
sorry for the double post, but I just saw Hrvat’s…
I don’t think Matthew minds being behind the Croats because they’re Croats so much as that we seem to have so many advantages (longer history as a country, long-standing democracy, (generally!) strong economy, etc.) and yet fall so far behind.
That said, every person I’ve met from Eastern Europe seems to be very well-read, good at math, etc. Our school systems need some work – I am a person who tends to be technically minded, tests suggest economist!, but I am terrible at math and my lowest college grade was Econ 101.
Hello Hrvat, though! It is nice to see a Croat – my family is Slovene-American.
December 4, 2008 at 3:12 pm
CMR is viciously anti-Croat!!! We will not rest until they have the worst education system in the world.
December 4, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Ah, my mistake.
December 4, 2008 at 11:21 pm
😀
On a more serious note however, Nzie I have to point out that Croatia exists from the 7th century. If you take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Croatia you’ll see how rich our history was. There you can also see the suffering the Croats endured under foreign rulers throughout the centuries. For all this time Catholic faith has been the core of our identity. During the Ottoman Empire, Croatia was called and indeed was the forefront of Christianity, defending the Europe from the Turkish forces. Some 18 years ago we were still under the 40 year long communist regime that has prosecuted and killed numerous priests and even bishops. Just 10 years ago the war for Croatian freedom, against Serbian aggressors, has ended (some of the images from not so long ago, the city of Vukovar is near the border with Serbia:
http://www.safaric-safaric.si/1991-2006_Vukovar.jpg
http://www.croaciaviva.com/images/GUERRA%20CROACIA/vukovar3.jpg)
Sorry for the long comment.
December 4, 2008 at 11:25 pm
Ah, I did not mean to imply that there was any lack of Croatian history or identity, just that it has not been its own country in modern times for very long, courtesy mainly Austria and then as part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, then Jugoslavia. I meant no disrespect, and thank you for the information. My family came here (US) from Slovenia in the early 1900s and share a similar history and likewise proud traditions, both of the oppression and also of the history of independence in language and culture, etc.
Thank you!
December 5, 2008 at 8:16 am
I understand you completely, part of my post was just to show that we can endure any prosecution CMR will be doing, since it is so anti-Croat 😀
Oh, and did I mention we regularly beat Slovenia in football? 😀
Have a nice weekend!
December 5, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Them’s fightin’ words! 😉
Football is the consolation prize for losing to Slovenija in economic success….
just kidding! Congrats on the football wins.
December 5, 2008 at 5:46 pm
For the record, Floyd Landis’ testosterone levels were in the normal range in all tests that were conducted. Some tests did report portions of the testosterone were synthetic, though not at unnatural levels.
More than you could want to know at trust but verify.
TBV