As a teacher, I have several comments to add to this. Disclaimer: Fully based on my individual experience at my school, and through discussions with other teachers at my school. Certainly, discipline, culture, and experiences could be different at different schools throughout the county.

Yes, cheating has always and will always happen. However, it has become much more of an issue in the last ten years, and phone usage has a lot to do with it. Students can snap a picture of their completed assignment and text it or air drop it to their friends in the matter of seconds. Those students can then copy their friend's answers during class (usually, they are caught; they are often not as slick as they think), or at a later time. In my experience, this has more to do with cheating on classwork/homework versus on quizzes and tests. MCPS has basically taken away any kind of penalty for late work or copying. If it's late, teachers still have to accept it, sometimes with zero penalty. At my school, the most you can take off ever is 10% in the AT category, and you can't take off anything in the PP category. If a student is caught copying, we can't give them a zero. We have to give them an opportunity to redo it, either during lunch or after school. Same with plagiarism. This used to be an automatic zero because we set clear expectations of what was not acceptable and taught what plagiarism is. We still do both of those things, but now, the kids just get to redo the assignment, oftentimes with our help. That is supposed to be a penalty for them, but it also takes away our time to eat lunch or plan--kind of a moot point, as the students very rarely show up anyway.

As another poster said, MCPS has not taken a firm stance on cell phone usage. Teachers have very little control over the cell phone issue that has become a total addiction for most of our students. We can ask them to put them away...they take them out as soon as we walk away. We can ask them to set them on our desk. They then put their head down, use their Apple Watch, or cuss us out and refuse to turn over their phone. There is no support from administration or MCPS as a whole for how to deal with this. Parents text their kids during class.

Giving tests/quizzes on the computer does increase a student's ability to cheat. You can put things in place to prevent it, but the students are tech savvy and can often find ways around those safeguards. This was absolutely made worse during virtual learning and kids had time to learn how to cheat on these online programs while at home. Many teachers spent time converting assessments or writing new assessments for Canvas and are choosing to continue using those this year. Personally, I have switched back to paper, but I don't blame teachers for sticking with Canvas. With students being absent and allowed to learn from home right now, it's an enormous time investment to have to make everything on paper for your in-person students and then digital for the handful of students you have learning virtually.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DC is in an MCPS high school. I’ve recently discovered that many students are cheating on so many assignments and tests. I think that it began during virtual learning and is continuing now that they are in person. Having tests and assignments online makes it easy to share answers. They can easily take pictures or videos of their screens and share it.

Have other parents or teachers discovered this?

Newsflash, this didn't begin with virtual learning. I know it's popular to blame DL for all the evils in this world, but you need to get a grip.

Wee DL has made it worse as many tests are still taken on the chrome books instead of on the paper probably because its more convenient for grading purposes.. but yeah it did get worse with DL

Anonymous wrote:I’m a HS teacher and it is very difficult to control. Cell phones have made the problem so much worse. Kids are texting answers to each other while in class.
Many kids don’t want to bother putting in any effort because they know they can copy off friends. It is a depressing situation which is hard to manage

Why are kids allowed to have cell phones out during a test? Surely it is within your authority as a teacher to say they have to be put in bag during test.

Anonymous wrote:I really don't care. The old saying "when you cheat, you only cheat yourself." Good luck explaining why your SAT scores don't match your GPA. Good luck doing well in college when you missed all the foundational stuff. Mind your business and keep moving forward.

A HS parent here. Both my kids talk about the rampant cheating. Some of these kids cheating have been accepted to top schools this year. This is just pathetic. By hook or by crook, huh?

One very real reason for individual parents to drill down on this with their kids is that cheating is also widespread--and on the upswing--in college, and there a second offense can often lead to expulsion. Yes, there are situations where it does not, and everyone has plenty of stories about being surrounded by cheating that went uncaught or unpunished. Some folks will also say that faculty just don't want to throw the book at it for any number of reasons (one being that it is a lot of trouble to go through the whole process). But there are plenty of professors who are strongly motivated by a sense of fairness for the non-cheaters and a sense of the ethical conduct of their profession. Make sure that your kids aren't the ones who put faculty in a position where they have to investigate. I actually call my students' attention to times, places, and ways that it might be tempting to cheat in a given semester, so that they know how not to cheat out of desperation and make better choices about how to plan their work. (They also know that we are watching, of course, but we should be. That's part of our job.)

Anonymous wrote:I really don't care. The old saying "when you cheat, you only cheat yourself." Good luck explaining why your SAT scores don't match your GPA. Good luck doing well in college when you missed all the foundational stuff. Mind your business and keep moving forward.

+1

Thank goodness for those standardized tests like the PSATs, SATs, and APs!!
(and no to the haters, my UMC did not use paid preppers or tutors! Great scores on his own and free Khan Academy!)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a HS teacher and it is very difficult to control. Cell phones have made the problem so much worse. Kids are texting answers to each other while in class.
Many kids don’t want to bother putting in any effort because they know they can copy off friends. It is a depressing situation which is hard to manage

Why do you allow phones in the classroom? Either phones in the lockers or on the teachers desk. If there are twenty kids then there better be twenty phones on your desk or the test doesn’t start.

Another teacher here. Teachers need to follow the rules set by the school and MCPS. MCPS refuses to acknowledge that phones are a huge distraction in high schools. My school has no consequences for phone use so there is not much I can do except constant reminders to put phones away and calling students out. Many students rush through their class work so they can play on their phones. It is sad. Phones are a big reason why teaching has become so much worse than 10 years ago. You also notice how students now have a much more limited attention span compared to 10 years ago.
MCPS needs to wake up and set rules about phones but they don’t want to address difficult topics.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a HS teacher and it is very difficult to control. Cell phones have made the problem so much worse. Kids are texting answers to each other while in class.
Many kids don’t want to bother putting in any effort because they know they can copy off friends. It is a depressing situation which is hard to manage

Why do you allow phones in the classroom? Either phones in the lockers or on the teachers desk. If there are twenty kids then there better be twenty phones on your desk or the test doesn’t start.

Kids used to just copy off each other, but at least texting is even. more obvious and leaves a trail of evidence.

Anonymous wrote:My DC is in an MCPS high school. I’ve recently discovered that many students are cheating on so many assignments and tests. I think that it began during virtual learning and is continuing now that they are in person. Having tests and assignments online makes it easy to share answers. They can easily take pictures or videos of their screens and share it.

Have other parents or teachers discovered this?

Newsflash, this didn't begin with virtual learning. I know it's popular to blame DL for all the evils in this world, but you need to get a grip.

Cheating is worse in college. Folks would straight up pay people to take midterms and finals.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do open book exams.

Yes; too much emphasis on memorization over analysis, anyway.

When did you go to school? Kids are required to memorize very little. See "Word Banks" and "Reading Passages" on every exam.

Anonymous wrote:I really don't care. The old saying "when you cheat, you only cheat yourself." Good luck explaining why your SAT scores don't match your GPA. Good luck doing well in college when you missed all the foundational stuff. Mind your business and keep moving forward.

Except colleges are no longer asking for the SAT or AP scores. They are basing admission on GPA.

Anonymous wrote:Do open book exams.

Yes; too much emphasis on memorization over analysis, anyway.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a HS teacher and it is very difficult to control. Cell phones have made the problem so much worse. Kids are texting answers to each other while in class.
Many kids don’t want to bother putting in any effort because they know they can copy off friends. It is a depressing situation which is hard to manage

Why do you allow phones in the classroom? Either phones in the lockers or on the teachers desk. If there are twenty kids then there better be twenty phones on your desk or the test doesn’t start.

Wish it were that easy, especially when mom wants to know what happened to Larla's iphone 13 that "the teacher took and never gave back."

Anonymous wrote:I’m a HS teacher and it is very difficult to control. Cell phones have made the problem so much worse. Kids are texting answers to each other while in class.
Many kids don’t want to bother putting in any effort because they know they can copy off friends. It is a depressing situation which is hard to manage

Why do you allow phones in the classroom? Either phones in the lockers or on the teachers desk. If there are twenty kids then there better be twenty phones on your desk or the test doesn’t start.