NWA editorial: Cheating just a little?

Standards for academic integrity must set strong tone

"It is the practice of Bentonville Public Schools to facilitate honesty and integrity among the student body."

-- Student handbook

What’s the point?

School district policies must maintain a strong stand against cheating by students.

That's good news, isn't it? As with so much these days, things that should go without saying very often have to be said, and written, after lawyers review them.

A little more than a week ago -- before Superintendent Michael Poore dropped a bombshell resignation as part of a state drama that rocked Little Rock as well as Bentonville -- the school board was going through much more mundane stuff, such as reviewing student handbooks.

You know what they are, those collections of vital policies none of the students actually reads. But vital they are, because institutions such as public schools can't operate on the whims of administrators or teachers, at least not these days when some parents will descend on educators like the plague or file a lawsuit if little Johnny isn't named starting quarterback or first-chair flute, or both.

The school board put off until May 2 further deliberations on the high school student handbook as administrators (and the school district's lawyer) figure out the best way to phrase sections calling for academic integrity. The idea -- and what a good one -- is that student success must be based upon his or her own merit. "To this end," the handbook says, "academic misconduct of any kind is unacceptable."

In a word, they're talking about cheating.

We're not big on zero tolerance policies because they remove any case-by-case analysis of actual circumstances, but when it comes to cheating, the line in the concrete needs to be abundantly clear.

Board members pushing for accountability deserve accolades, although we're sure there are parents who just don't understand what the big deal is. Someone should audit their income taxes.

Cheating is a huge deal, and especially in an academic setting, it should be treated for the violation of trust it is. If it's important to maintain an anti-drug abuse mantra to help some kids resist illicit drug use, how much more so is it vital to the lives of every student to adhere to standards of truth and integrity? Cheating has a corrosive effect on its practitioner.

Today's students no doubt experience stress from the academic competition and expectations for success. Some will succumb to the temptation to cheat. Cheating, however, does not help them achieve success; it temporarily taps into someone else's achievement and misappropriates it. Whether caught or not, cheating represents failure.

But school leaders have to figure out what to do when students are caught. Board member Grant Lightle has suggested students lose the right to an "honors" designation and other school awards if they're caught cheating.

Administrators proposed a complicated three-strikes style of policy with a graduated severity of responses. It would be on the third offense, under their initial proposals, that a student would lose any honors designation he's earned.

Third offense? That's not exactly a crackdown in the name of academic integrity. By then, they've certainly established they aren't just cheating once, but actually deserve the label of "cheater."

How about giving a student an "F" if they're caught cheating? Apparently, that's not permissive enough. District administrators say state rules require them to base grades solely on mastery of the course work. State standards for accreditation say "Grades assigned to students for performance in a course shall reflect only the extent to which a student has achieved the expressed academic objectives of the course."

Here's an idea: Make an expressed academic objective of the course to teach the kids not to cheat. Then, if they are caught cheating, the grade assigned can reflect their failure to perform within those objectives.

Students performing with integrity don't need policies or standards. The ones who cheat, however, need repercussions.

We're not suggesting students caught cheating need to be expelled, but they don't deserve the prospect of life going on like normal, either. School shouldn't be a place where policies foster an "everyone gets a trophy" mentality regardless of individual decisions.

Cheating by students is like a firefighter committing arson, or a police officer fabricating evidence, or an educator doing something that harms one of the young people they're charged with helping. There are some lines that just must not be crossed.

Cheating is one of them, and hopefully society hasn't reached the point at which someone will argue that point.

Commentary on 04/22/2016

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