Anyone who says they’ve never cheated on a test is a liar in addition to being a cheat. Even my mother cheated on the written portion of her driver’s license exam. (It shows.) But students at the esteemed Stuyvesant High School are supposed to be better than the rest of us. These kids are the future Nobel Prize winners, the future surgeons of parts of the brain I’ve never heard of! Cheat on tests? Heavens, no!
But 71 bright-eyed Stuy students have been accused of doing just that––and on the state Regents exams no less. A teacher confiscated a student’s cell phone and found text messages discussing questions on the test. Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott announced today that one kid took a picture of the test, and through some sort of texting tree, 69 other students got a peek at the questions on the exam. Another had gone old school: s/he passed notes.
The note passer and the test photographer are both likely to be suspended. The other 69 cheaters will have to take the test again, and are likely to be forbidden from participating in a number of extracurricular activities like student government or athletic teams. (Given the competitive atmosphere of prestigious high schools like Stuyvesant, a lack of extracurriculars can have serious ramifications on college applications.)
What lesson can we take away from this dishonorable act? Maybe that we should reexamine the fetishization of test scores and grades? Maybe that a competitive academic system is not the most clever or efficient system? Maybe? (Photo: Alberto G./Flickr)
That last paragraph took the words out of my mouth. Fact.
I’m baffled. the regents exam? that shit was considered so easy at Stuy, it doesn’t make sense to cheat on it.
Wealthy people cheat. It's that simple.
U never heard of me – get your facts straight. More than half the kids at Stuy are the childen of immigrants, most qualify for subsidized lunches. Their parents know the value of education and do the best to instill it in their kids; the parents have made sacrafices coming to America and the children are aware of this. Combine stress at home with an ultra competitive enviornment composed of the cities best and brightest is a lot for a teenager to handle; so some of them cheat. Not all but some.It should not be a reflection on the majority of hard working kids that earned their spot at Stuy.
- Rob. Stuy 1995
If more than half of the kids at Stuyvesant are poor immigrants…how is me asserting that wealthy people cheat a reflection on the majority of kids there?
I would love to know the socioeconomic status of the 70 kids. My bet is the majority are wealthy kids.
Reminds me of that poor kid’s hustle out in LI where he was hired by wealthy kids to take their SATs for them.