Widespread cheating at McLean HS

[Anonymous]

Cell phones are supposed to be banned except for lunch. Granted, I know it's hard for a teacher to catch everything, but shouldn't they be able to catch a few?

I say this because in my child's math class, a student brought their phone out. The teacher saw, walked up and took the test right off the desk. Then the teacher said anyone else who was caught with a phone wouldn't just fail the test but the entire quarter.

Threats like that can minimize cheating, I would think.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How exactly is there cheating, what do they do

My DH is a high school math teacher - not in FCPS. But I'm sure they way they cheat in his high school happens in every high school in the country. Kids were doing the same thing when I was in high school 35 years ago.

My DH gives out two versions of a test. Larla gets copy A. Lurlu gets copy B. Larla sits next to Lurlu.
Copy A. Question #1: 4+4 = ?
Copy B. Question #1: 6 - 1 = ?

Larla writes 4+4=8 Lurlu writes 6-1=8.

Lurlu obviously has obviously looked at Larla's test and copies the answers that Larla has written. What my DH doesn't know is if Larla has helped Lurlu. Did Larla put her paper so close to the edge of her desk so Lurlu can see her answers? Or is Larla completely innocent? He catches this type of cheating every single year when he gives the first test of the year. After that first test, he tells the students that he has caught the cheating and the copying off the neighbor usually stops.

[Anonymous]

When I was teaching middle schoolers before cell phones were in the hand of every child, I gave different versions of tests to different classes. Every question wasn’t different, but where I could make changes, I did.

Even before phones, we had kids telling later periods what was on the test. It is more work for the teacher, which sucks, but seems like it should be SOP. FWIW the most I had was 4 sections of a single subject

[Anonymous]

All of us teachers are trying to get a grip on cheaters. We can’t see everything at every moment. These kids take pics, write things on scratch paper, talk to the next class, pass their assignments down to younger siblings, etc. Please write to the teacher and they can see what can be done to tighten the ship.

[Anonymous]

Cheating is strategy now, do you remember TJ back in the day? Cheating was the only sport they excelled at, until the county lowered the boom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cell phones are supposed to be banned except for lunch. Granted, I know it's hard for a teacher to catch everything, but shouldn't they be able to catch a few?

I say this because in my child's math class, a student brought their phone out. The teacher saw, walked up and took the test right off the desk. Then the teacher said anyone else who was caught with a phone wouldn't just fail the test but the entire quarter.

Threats like that can minimize cheating, I would think.

I'm a teacher at a competitive HS. There is zero percent chance that the administration (or regional admin) would allow a teacher to do this. There is a 99.999 percent chance that if a teacher did this, the student's parents would take it to admin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cell phones are supposed to be banned except for lunch. Granted, I know it's hard for a teacher to catch everything, but shouldn't they be able to catch a few?

I say this because in my child's math class, a student brought their phone out. The teacher saw, walked up and took the test right off the desk. Then the teacher said anyone else who was caught with a phone wouldn't just fail the test but the entire quarter.

Threats like that can minimize cheating, I would think.

Administration will not let teachers do this. Otherwise, it might work. Teachers get no top cover from administration to deal with cheating. And anyone who thinks this issue is localized to one HS is confused; this issue exists in every FCPS HS and innmany other HSs (public and private) nationwide.

In China, the cheating on key exams (Gao Kao) is so severe and so widespread, that they now give the exams at the exact same time/day nationwide. Similar issues with widespread cheating on key national exams in India also.

[Anonymous]

OP, id like to suggest in our experience, the culture to Cheat is learned in Elementary School. Our kid has 31 kids in a classroom set up for 20 kids. My 6th grader has been doing "group work" the whole time in ES. Students sit 6-4 to a small table and are looking directly at each other's work/ answers the whole time.

My kid has become an expert at copying the other kid's work and vice versa. While the teamwork motto 'cooperate to graduate' is in play daily, there seems to be much less of an emphasis of individual work.

-Given these facts, it is no surprise that you are reporting rampant cheating is the norm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. It just makes me sick to my stomach. According to my HS student, some of the parents of the cheaters know about the cheating and are willing to look the other way as long as it helps DC get into a T20. It makes me wonder if top schools are mostly comprised of strivey cheaters.

OP this has been going on for ages. It happens at College level as well as other people have posted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cell phones are supposed to be banned except for lunch. Granted, I know it's hard for a teacher to catch everything, but shouldn't they be able to catch a few?

I say this because in my child's math class, a student brought their phone out. The teacher saw, walked up and took the test right off the desk. Then the teacher said anyone else who was caught with a phone wouldn't just fail the test but the entire quarter.

Threats like that can minimize cheating, I would think.

Cheating doesn't just happen during test time, you understand right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cell phones are supposed to be banned except for lunch. Granted, I know it's hard for a teacher to catch everything, but shouldn't they be able to catch a few?

I say this because in my child's math class, a student brought their phone out. The teacher saw, walked up and took the test right off the desk. Then the teacher said anyone else who was caught with a phone wouldn't just fail the test but the entire quarter.

Threats like that can minimize cheating, I would think.

I'm a teacher at a competitive HS. There is zero percent chance that the administration (or regional admin) would allow a teacher to do this. There is a 99.999 percent chance that if a teacher did this, the student's parents would take it to admin.

Yep. And every parent knows that empty threats are worse than saying nothing. Might get away with docking points on the test but no way the teacher would be allowed to fail them for the term.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cell phones are supposed to be banned except for lunch. Granted, I know it's hard for a teacher to catch everything, but shouldn't they be able to catch a few?

I say this because in my child's math class, a student brought their phone out. The teacher saw, walked up and took the test right off the desk. Then the teacher said anyone else who was caught with a phone wouldn't just fail the test but the entire quarter.

Threats like that can minimize cheating, I would think.

Administration will not let teachers do this. Otherwise, it might work. Teachers get no top cover from administration to deal with cheating. And anyone who thinks this issue is localized to one HS is confused; this issue exists in every FCPS HS and innmany other HSs (public and private) nationwide.

In China, the cheating on key exams (Gao Kao) is so severe and so widespread, that they now give the exams at the exact same time/day nationwide. Similar issues with widespread cheating on key national exams in India also.

I forget which off top of head but I'm aware that some countries (mostly in Africa IIRC) actually turn off internet access across the entire country during the administration of national standardized exams. Not endorsing that idea at all, but just an example of how rampant the issue is and how challenging it is to solve for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ha. It's comical if you think it is only at this High School. Even back when I was in high school the classes where cheating happened the most was in my honors/AP classes.

My kids in high school both have reported tons of cheating and even when kids are caught, not much is done so it ends up being low risk.

Who claimed it was only happening at McLean? Why are you being an ass "refuting" something no one ever said?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I was teaching middle schoolers before cell phones were in the hand of every child, I gave different versions of tests to different classes. Every question wasn’t different, but where I could make changes, I did.

Even before phones, we had kids telling later periods what was on the test. It is more work for the teacher, which sucks, but seems like it should be SOP. FWIW the most I had was 4 sections of a single subject

Do you know how many versions there would have to be?

There are 17 sections of algebra 2 at my school. If we simplify it to say each class section doesn't need it's own test, only the period (so all 1st period classes take the same one), that's 7 versions. But then there are always, ALWAYS absent students. How many additional versions do I need for them? The one who takes it the following day in the remediation block gets version 8. The one who takes it after school gets version 9. The one who missed the whole week gets version 10.

And then the retakes start. So there's 10 more versions.

At the end of the day the best I can do is change the numbers, but a kid can still leave my room and tell their buddy there is a word problem about parabolic motion. I can't change the content of the exams and still have them be fair/equivalent.

Right now, we make 4 versions of every test. 2 for the initial testing, 1 for late students, and one as the retake. That's as good as it's going to get unless you want everything to be created by AI and be multiple choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cell phones are supposed to be banned except for lunch. Granted, I know it's hard for a teacher to catch everything, but shouldn't they be able to catch a few?

I say this because in my child's math class, a student brought their phone out. The teacher saw, walked up and took the test right off the desk. Then the teacher said anyone else who was caught with a phone wouldn't just fail the test but the entire quarter.

Threats like that can minimize cheating, I would think.

There is a very clear flow chart for cheating at my FCPS high school.

Cheating event #1: Retake summative assessment, max allowed score 85%, after school detention
Cheating event #2: Retake summative assessment, max allowed score 75%, saturday detention, removed from honor societies
Cheating event #3: Retake summative assessment, max allowed score 65%, in school suspension, barred from student government

We have no leeway to threaten more than that.