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The school district gave all 600 seniors two options: take the test again or have their semester grade calculated without the final exam in it.
HOUSTON — Hundreds of seniors at a southeast Houston high school were caught cheating on a final exam last month, said Clear Creek Independent School District officials.
Teachers and administrators at Clear Lake High School grew suspicious when about a third of the seniors had the same answers on an English exam taken before winter break.
Read this story at NBC station KPRC-TV
"We believe about 200 students engaged in cheating on the final exam for the English 4 test," said Elaina Polsen, director of communication for Clear Creek ISD.
The school district gave all 600 seniors two options: take the test again or have their semester grade calculated without the final exam in it.
"We are certainly not brushing this under the rug," said Polsen. "We are looking at our internal processes and making improvements where we need to to make sure this does not happen again."
Lisa Maxwell-Malik, whose son is a senior at Clear Lake, said: "That's pretty bad. It's disappointing."
Maxwell-Malik said officials from the school district called and emailed about the two options.
"I was a little disappointed that students would cheat, but also that they would wait until the day before school started to let the kids know they're going to have to repeat the test," she said. "They're going to have to study and take something when they thought they were down with [it] the first semester."
Alena Baker is a junior at Clear Lake but is graduating early. She said she heard rumors about the cheating during finals week.
Alena didn't take the test but says the lesson is simple.
"Just do the right thing, because you don't want to have to be the one that made everyone retake the test," she said.
Disciplinary action against individuals who were caught cheating has not been determined because of the large number of students involved, said district officials.
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the cheaters should be given a ZERO grade for the exam, and have that figured into their grade: simple, just, easy. any other "punishment" does not speak to their action and is unjust to those who did not cheat.
The problem is that the losers who did this are pretty much D and F student losers anyway. Keep the cheaters from having their senior prom. Let the "good" students have the problem, plus some bonus/rewards for doing the right thing. Since this is a national story now, the administrators actions should be taken as a message to all school kids about cause and effect, actions and responsibilities. Most of these kids are going to be criminals anyway, let them get another taste of how pissy it is when you get caught.
The problem is that the losers who did this are pretty much D and F student losers anyway.
Don't assume that. As a former teacher I've seen B+ students cheating to ensure an A, and A students cheating to ensure that they kept an A.
This is the core problem with our liberal driven society nowadays... Instead of holding the 200 cheaters accountable, and punishing them accordingly for their actions... let's just make everyone retake the test so the administrators can shirk the responsibility of applying accountability... Welcome to the new world of no accountability being taught early and often by our liberal school systems... Wonderful!
Excuse me, but the majority where not caught directly cheating. The test was comprised before the majority of them took the test. I agree that this is a horrible thing and that there is no excuse for cheating but the situation is much more complicated than what the headlines are saying. It was a tough call as to what to do with the scores. I am glad I wasn't the one that had to make that decision. Do you punish everyone for the actions of 25 percent of the senior class that are suspected of using the information gained from viewing the key code that was sent to them? AND THEYRE WRONG. The senior class is over 800 students, about 200 are in dual credit English. The key code for the test was mass distributed via text to students and the test was compromised early on.
Wait a minute. Aren't we suppose to be coddling these students. When did they start giving out grades again? I thought grades went out with keeping score in ball games. Wont this damage their psyche?
It ain't cheating if it's Texas. It's proper and expected. The real problem here is that there seems to be a few students that don't want to flow with the crowd. Can you imagine, trying to keep their grades up by studying and learning the subject. Oh well, they'll learn soon enough. If you want to get ahead, ya gotta screw the rabble.
excuse me, don't blame the state for a very small number of students. Plus, if news stations really knew how much students in high school across the nation cheated they wouldn't have time to cover anything else. I'm not saying cheating is right (its defiantly NOT) and just at all and people are only cheating his or her self by cheating. But enough with the negativity! Don't yall have anything better to do than fuss?? I think getting all this crap and humiliation and the reputation from people and the test being thrown out is enough for the students involved and the innocent students. -AHEM- think about how the students at that school feel because of this whole situation before you open your mouth.
"We're certainly not brushing this under the rug", umm, what else do you call giving 200 SENIORS (who should know better) 2 options...Re-take the exam or their grade calculated without the exam??? That's their punishment??? I shudder to think of some of the other policies' this "skool" would carry out.
How about the 2 options are, re-take the exam plus do a 10 page book report OR FLUNK!
*Icing on the cake is that it was just an ENGLISH exam!
You misspelled school. I question your intelligence.
so dragonmaster your part of the rabble? kind of thought so - you have that kind of loser mentality I associate with rabble, never-do-wells that seek to blame everyone else for their mistakes in life.
theres 800 seniors. damn media got it wrong
Elizabeth, "There's"! Now who's the one that needs questioning?
So? I left out a apostrophe. You're missing my point. LEAVE LAKE ALONEEEE.
My bad Beth, I didn't understand your intent!
And you misspelled "definitely" in your earlier post so I'm still confused. You probably shouldn't be posting if your going to take it so personally. It's news regardless of if you like it or not. People are more then entitled to their opinion.
I'm a Houston resident and parent. I'm personally ashamed and feel that they should receive a zero and have it factor into their grade. Period..the end.
Well, sorry for the typo. Calm down. I was just pointing out his/her's blatant misspelling of the word.
I do think cheaters should receive zeros but there's no possible way to figure out exactly who cheated and who did not. The exam was taken on different days of the week by class period. On the second day, the school admin learned that the test had been compromised and switched the question order for the tests being administered later that week. The 200 student number is just an estimate of what the district thinks cheated, give or take. There was no 200 student caught red handed cheating. Consider that. There's no concrete proof to determine who cheated and who did not.
I am student at Lake (though not a senior) and I am very disappointed in the 200 seniors.
Elizabeth...I misspelled on purpose. If the school wants to act dumb, I'll spell it dumb. Why do you think I put it in apostrophe's? Geeeesh
Seniors?? Why were Old people taking English tests. Were they mexicans??
You fail at comedy... don't quit your day job
WTF? You should stay unknown! Your joke is racist and not funny.
You should have just left it at Old people. That may have been cute. Now it's just offensive.
Sanitycheck !! Well what other old people would be learning english you dunce?? It's not a joke and it isn't racist either. racist racist racist only card in the deck for some.
Unknown, it was a corny joke done in bad taste. Let it go.
it was a JOKE people get over it. I'm sure he doesn't only pick on mexicans but everyone else also. I am the same way I might make a black joke, turn around and make a white joke. True racist stay in the closet.
Come on you people quit being Butt hurt. mexican is not a race anyway. Go back to high school.
OMG, you implied Mexicans in Texas might be learning English (and have to take a test on it). How "racist"! ;)
This bizarre non-sequitur hyper-sensativity was best parodied by Michael Scott of The Office. "Is there a less offensive term than 'Mexican'?"
People taking offense every time the "M-word" comes up might want to examine their own prejudices.
unknown mexican is a race.
Is it a Half or Full Marathon?
yo girl: mexican is a nationality not a race - as in citizen of the nation of Mexico - hispanic is a race. Lord you do demonstrate what is wrong with the education system in the United States - your simply stupid
There's more Asians at CLHS than Mexicans....how stereotypical.
Elizabeth..don't take things so seriously! It was just a joke! You're so defensive all over this board. If you did not cheat, and don't condone the actions of those who did, than what are you so feverishly defending?
lol. The asian comment, my friend said that when she saw it so i decided to steal her quote. It gave some of us Lake students a laugh.
I'm defending the reputation of my school. People get the wrong info and come up with their own conclusions....like some comments I've seen talk about the theory of the students meeting up and conspiring or its political . AHAHAHA. As if.
this is typical of the youth in society today. this is what happens when liberals
take their agenda so far there is no consequences for anything anymore cause
schools are scared parents will sue them or some group will protest if they
discipline their kids. i know it's not all kids but you see more and more of this.
look at the protesters asking for free stuff from the government and jealous
of people working and making money! nothing in life is free!!!! 200 kids? that's bad.
Ervin, you are typical of the gross generalizations people make right and left about the decline of society. You certainly are bold to speak of the liberal "agenda" when you are using your agenda (as opposed to any basis in fact) to blame a cheating scandal on liberals.
In case you couldn't read between the lines, the reason they didn't give a zero grade to the cheaters is because the evidence is circumstantial, and they can't pinpoint and prove 200 individual instances of cheating. That's why ALL the kids are retaking the exam. If that's too liberal an approach to the problem, then I would like to know how a good conserative would handle the situation.
However, I am miffed at the parent who was disappointed they gave them so little notice to retake the exam, because "they thought they were [done] with it." Is it too much to ask that students retain information for two weeks?
i was also disappointed- because her implication was that now the students would have to study- probably for the 1st time- i would have thought she, as a mother, would beleive in the value of education for her son, not consider education to be a nuisance.
You mean students never cheated before? Wow - who knew!
Pedestrian: unfortunately cheating is not new but cheating on this scale is a fairly new to our society. simply the result of disengaged parents, stupid, lazy kids and an education system that settles for mediocre then excellence
Maybe the school should change their test every few YEARS???
5, 6, 7, 19 deleted, Bush and Texas derails. Come on, y'all. This isn't YouTube.
You don't say. Does this mean they had identical written portions? Pretty much every English HS test would have a written portion, I'd think.
I'd really like to know exactly WHO you are Tyler, if i might ask?
he's a professional who weeds out words of weasels...he's the honey badger of the vine...
If you are stupid enough to cheat with 199 other people and believe you wouldn't get caught you should have to retake your Freshmen, Sophmore, and Junior finals again! There's no way you should be a Senior if you're that retarded!
That is sooo funny and I agree completely.
Kids cheat for one reason - they don't feel confident that they know the material to pass the test. In my opinion, the bigger question is why did SO many kids feel they couldn't pass the exam in the first place?
Because it was an "English" test! DUH!
Because it was Texas! DUH!
Is that how they do it in Texas? In New Jersey, it's the teachers who do the cheating, changing answers to give their schools a better rating.
I first thought this article was going to be about senior citizens and was going to laugh. Now that I read the article, I'd rather go fishing.
yeah i originally thought it was going to be a sad yet funny story about dating websites for cheating senior citizens. this however is just sad. then again, everything's bigger in texas, and the same goes for the number of cheates.
Liberals to blame, interesting. When did liberals take over in Houston Texas? Liberals must sure be some powerful people.
Take over Houston....no. Rule the NEA, teachers unions and school superintendent offices that make policy and education decisions that foment this kind of behavior? ABSOLUTELY.
There isn't a teacher's union in Texas, RaginCajun. At least not one that can actually DO anything.
I agree with Denton #4 "Maybe the school should change their test every few YEARS???"
How did 200 students get the answers for the final, and how did no one see them cheating on test day? They must have had the answers written down in order to get the same questions wrong.
I want to hear the story of the teacher that let 200 students cheat. Students try to cheat all the time, most of the time the teacher catches them right off the bat.
Or a camera phone was used to pass the test along with the answers to those yet to take it.
Crackhead educators, how about NO DIPLOMA, congrats you cheated your way to a GED.
Why not option 3: Those that cheated are expelled? That's what would have happened when I was in high school. This is what lack of personal accountability gets us.
It's what the kids have seen for the last few decades.
People do not have to be held accountable, all they have to do is blame 'something' and have enough doing the wrong thing, to get away with it...just look at all the treason, corruption and even some sexual escapades coming out of Congress and the Senate since 9-11...
they get away with it even when caught in outright blatant lies, NOT HELD ACCOUNTABLE...so why hold some kids accountable for a test in a public education system that would only be good enough to earn them a minimal wage career....seems those kids have already been punished...let them just go to college now...if they can pass the entrance exams.
One third of the entire senior class cheated? Alright! Here comes the next generation of corporate leaders, bankers, hedge fund managers, and politicians! That's America, baby!
Maybe the teachers should be replaced since they can't even proctor an exam properly.
You're blaming the teachers?! Wow.
JL4, I agree with OurDoc. If a high school staff member does not know how to proctor a test properly, I have to question if that same staff member was as unattentive when the students took tests after learning new material? Tenuring teachers is an out dated way to reward for skill and effort. It seems as though we can land on the moon, but we can't figure out how to evaluate our teachers. Pathetic!
so glad it was caught - better late than never; next time proctors should closely monitor during testing.
So one teacher, proctoring 200 students or more, is supposed to do a good job. OR more likely a district wide test with several students in multiple classrooms, who Knew what they were doing, and didn't care that they were hurting many others. Probably getting ready to run for office in Texas somewhere.
There were 600 kids giving the test! There had to be multiple teachers and classrooms, read the whole story and "Focus,Focus, Focus"!
From the headline I was thinking that somehow some old people were cheating on a driver test or something. Maybe it should have read: "High School Seniors"...
Solex,
I agree, the headline was misleading. You get your "A" in English and will now be allowed to graduate. Congratulations. :D
Hahaha... I thought the same thing. I was hoping for a senior citizen scandal!! Oh well.
Can a Senior sit through a whole exam with out having to get up to use the bathroom?
"DEPENDS"!
Education is purely academic -- No jobs waiting for grads other than crime.
..and it was an English test in Texas...not very important for a Spanish speaking nation like Texas is it...
Those two options sure sound like brushing it under the rug to me!!!
Clearly if 200 students cheated, its not like they were all in the same class at one time. Someone was the little devil who found the test and handed it out. Typical BS kids pull... lets not forget we were all that age once and how easy it is to say "hell yeah I'll take those answers!" when you are studying for 6 or 7 other exams. I think retaking the test or getting a zero IS MORE THAN FAIR. Its cheating, not murder.
The poor little darlings. Could it be they weren't taught much to begin with. We know there morals are in the toilot. Look at the shining examples they have to look up to like Joe Biden or Bill Clinton
and GW Bush, Dick [head] Cheney, senile actor Reagan...ya, some real moral people in there huh sparky
hows your foot tasting there sparky????
mmMmmmmmmMMMMm good sole huh sparky....
LOL!
ED-3553337, It's clear to me that YOU need a refresher course in punctuation and spelling!!! The little box immediately above the text area located to the far right is a spellchecker. You will avoid embarrassing yourself if you choose to use it! LOL
I could be wrong, but it looks to me like cbawl just developed a brand new hemroid.
Try sitting in a tub of very hot water with plenty of Epsom salts.
They should not get a second chance to re-take the exam, since they screwed up the first time and cheated. I never heard of any incidents of mass cheating where I went to school during my years there, but I did see instances of kids getting a zero on a regular test for talking or attempting to cheat during a regular test.
Perhaps it is time to change the test the school gives?
In my school days, such an act would get all 200 a 0..or expelled, forced to repeat the semester.
but this is 2012, morals and ethics are so last century....
If that ever happened in my school, it wasn't among my graduating class (we were a very academically competitive class, for the most part). And yes, I agree with expulsion for wrongdoing such as cheating on a test.