ACTION IN ATLANTA – AT 9:29 A.M. ET:  The Atlanta school system has been the focus of unwanted attention recently, amidst revelations that widespread cheating led to the false impression that students were making more progress than they actually were. 

ATLANTA (AP) — Atlanta Public Schools employees implicated in a widespread cheating scandal are getting notices that they've been put on paid administrative leave.

The notices sent out to teachers and others are among the steps the district must take as it begins to sort through each employee's case.

Superintendent Erroll Davis, who has been adamant that none of the employees will work in front of the district's students again, says he plans to start termination proceedings as quickly as he can.

A state report released earlier this month implicated educators in 44 schools for cheating on state tests. District officials say 41 of the educators suspected of cheating have already quit or retired.

And I'm sure those retirement benefits are generous.  A newly released study reports that the older students get, the more likely they are to believe cheating is acceptable:

Kids start to think cheating is OK as they get older, according to new data from surveys given to Fairfax County students in the sixth, eighth and 12th grades.

They're also less likely to be honest with their parents, and more likely to steal and ignore rules "that get in my way."

And...

In grade six, 97 percent of students responded "No" to the statement "I think sometimes it is OK to cheat at school." By the eighth grade, only 82 percent said no to cheating, and just 61 percent of high school seniors said the same.

"I wouldn't say it's expected -- we certainly want this as close to 100 percent as we can, especially for honesty and responsibility," said school board member Sandra Evans, who represents the Mason District and serves on the steering committee of the Northern Virginia Healthy Kids Coalition. "We need to find out why is that happening, before we can figure out what exactly we need to do."

COMMENT:  We're told that cheating is a national epidemic.  I'm afraid that isn't new.  We have had cheating scandals of one kind or another, going back as far as I can remember.  Even West Point, which enforces a strict honor code, had a major cheating scandal in 1949, and had to release 90 cadets. 

Perhaps the major difference between then and now is in attitude.  Today, a disturbing number of people accept cheating, and we also hear the comment, "Everybody does it."  It's apparently considered normal in some circles.  We might reflect on the kind of society we're building for the children, and what we have taught them.  I'm afraid that here we must indict the sixties generation, some of whose leading lights told us that ethics are relative, that values are oppressive, and that "if it feels good, do it." 

But they're not the only ones.  Harry Truman became famous as a senator by investigating corruption in the defense industry during World War II.  The Truman Committee launched him as a national figure.  But at least then the nation understood that what some contractors was doing was wrong. 

We've slipped.

July 28, 2011