In schools, cheating is an education in itself

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LOS ANGELES -- When a group of students were expelled last month from Harvard-Westlake School for stealing midterm exams at the academically rigorous school in suburban L.A., the incident highlighted an age-old problem facing educators: cheating.

A 2006 national survey found that more than 60 percent of high school students said they cheated on a test, and the number of self-admitted cheaters has risen steadily over the years.

Students today can make use of a vast array of high-tech gadgetry, challenging schools to keep pace. One click of the Internet opens a world of possibilities and temptations, devious and ingenious, with Web sites devoted to the best cheating practices and video cheating tutorials on YouTube.

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Motivating students to cheat, educators said, can be exactly that. The pursuit to be admitted to the "best" colleges, fear among students that not cheating will put them at a disadvantage and cultural influences that have exposed dishonest athletes, politicians and even parents ready to behave unethically, for example, to obtain Hannah Montana tickets.

Chicago Tribune

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1. If we didn't put so much pressure on kids this would not be a problem

I happen to know of one kid back in my high school days who cheated his whole way through school for four years and never got caught. He seemed to invest more effort in cheating than studying. He ended up being admitted to a top state university.