Cheaterpants!”

Are kids today worse than ever?

by Martha Brockenbrough
Here’s something discouraging for anyone who knows and cares about high school students: According to the 2006 Josephson Institute Report Card on the Ethics of American Youth, almost all of the high school students surveyed–98 percent–say it’s important to be an honest and honorable person.

Likewise, most of them–92 percent–say they’re satisfied with their own ethics and character.

So why is this discouraging?

Because these same kids admitted to lying to their parents in the last year about something significant (82 percent); lying to a teacher (62 percent); cheating on a test at school (60 percent); and plagiarizing off the Internet (32 percent).

What this means is that most kids are shredding their ethics, but not that many feel bad about it. What’s more, 16 percent of girls and 30 percent of boys (who are more likely than girls to cheat) reported that they thought cheaters were more likely to succeed in life.

The report focused on college students, who reported as high as a 96 percent cheating rate, according to one survey. The Center for Academic Integrity says that on most college campuses, the cheating rate is 70 percent. High schools aren’t much different; the cheating rate on tests is over 70 percent at public schools, and more than 60 percent of the students polled admit they’ve plagiarized. At private high schools, things are a little better, but not great: Just under half of the students polled admitted to cheating, either on tests or papers.

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