Cheating and Punishments Nick Jennings

David Jaffe states that today in American schools, cheating in school does not carry the same weight as if you cheated twenty years ago. Seventy-three percent of all test takers concluded that every student cheats at some point in their academic life (David Jaffe, Stanford.edu, 2019).  If students today think that cheating in school is not that hard or simply does not matter then we should harshen the punishment, as this would reignite the stigma that was apparent years ago. In 1940, David states that college students reported only 20 percent of all students admitted to cheating in high school, while today close to 98 percent of all college students admit to having cheated once in high school. Harshening the punishment would not only reduce the number of students that cheat but would improve the student's quality of work as it would exemplify what the student could actually do.

Andrew Simmons points to the classroom as being one of the biggest factors for cheating. Peer pressure and harsh classroom attitudes only help the problem climax and worsen the situation. He says that the best way to reduce classroom cheating is by investing students in their work, using metacognition, and creating honor councils (Andrew Simmons, Edutopia.org, 2018). By reducing the punishment and investing time into preventative measures like honor councils would reduce cheating far more than harsh reprimands.

As for my personal position, I am in favor of harshening punishment. the 98 percent of students who graduate from high school and have cheated, not only hurt themselves, but also ruin my education as it takes away from my experience. Those who cheat should not have the ability to go as far as someone who gets the same grade but does not cheat.  The whole idea of lightening the classroom attitude could coexist with harsh punishment. This would not only prevent more cheating but also punish those determined enough to cheat. Cheating does not end in high school or college, it follows someone into their life and effects their integrity as a person. We cannot allow cheating to seep into the moral compass of future students.