Posted by Tina
Honesty is a virtue that Americans once regarded very highly.
Honesty was indicative of a person of strong moral fiber. Honesty was expected and cheating was considered a serious offense and a strong indicator of a flaw in ones character. But, according to Neal Kingston, the director of the Center for Educational Testing and Evaluation at the University of Kansas, honesty is no longer a widely embraced virtue:
“The propensity to cheat on exams both through college and for licensure and certification exams seems to be increasing over time. People often don’t see it as something wrong.”
Another way to put that is that it is acceptable these days to fake it…to lie about achievement and ability. This unfortunate state of affairs has put another black mark on what was once considered a highly respectable and noble profession.
The cheating described in the following NBC News story rose to the level of a crime and involves Clarence Mumford Senior, an educator who is accused of fraud. He faces up to twenty years in jail if convicted:
It was a brazen and surprisingly long-lived scheme, authorities said, to help aspiring public school teachers cheat on the tests they must pass to prove they are qualified to lead their classrooms.
For 15 years, teachers in three Southern states paid Clarence Mumford Sr. — himself a longtime educator — to send someone else to take the tests in their place, authorities said. Each time, Mumford received a fee of between $1,500 and $3,000 to send one of his test ringers with fake identification to the Praxis exam. In return, his customers got a passing grade and began their careers as cheaters, according to federal prosecutors in Memphis.
Authorities say the scheme affected hundreds — if not thousands — of public school students who ended up being taught by unqualified instructors.
Mumford faces more than 60 fraud and conspiracy charges that claim he created fake driver’s licenses with the information of a teacher or an aspiring teacher and attached the photograph of a test-taker. Prospective teachers are accused of giving Mumford their Social Security numbers for him to make the fake identities.
The biggest losers in this fifteen year scheme are the children whose teachers won certification by cheating with Mumford’s help. Parents and taxpayers lose too because they don’t get full value for their tax investment when students can’t get “a fair shot” at a good education.
Unfortunately the moral compass that once served as bellwether in the American people seems to have been discarded and lost in the exhaust of popular culture. I’m not sure there are enough honest people left in the country to make this story relevant. Do people care about honesty anymore? Can America survive if large swaths of the population are both ignorant and dishonest?
A Stanford University geneticist claims that people are getting dumber. (See Jacks article below) The geneticists theory is a bit controversial but if the problem of cheating persists at least he’s provided the guilty with a good, scientifically based defense.
Now…if there was just a way to cap and tax those dirty cheats.
It starts at the top. This administration is the only one in our history that has the failure of a polygraph test as a job requirement.