Fairfax school board trying to fight the trend 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.”
Shocking? No. But the Youth Survey quantifies how steadily and reliably children stray from ethical behavior as they become teenagers. And the Fairfax County School Board is trying to fight the trend.
| Honesty and responsibility | ||||||||
| Percent of students who gave the desired response to survey questions. | ||||||||
| Statement | Desired response | Grade 6 | Grade 8 | Grade 12 | ||||
| I think sometimes it is OK to cheat at school. | No | 97% | 82% | 61% | ||||
| It is important to be honest with your parents even if they become upset or you get punished. | Yes | 96% | 85% | 78% | ||||
| I think it is OK to take something without asking if you can get away with it. | No | 95% | 86% | 84% | ||||
| How often do you come to class without your homework finished? | Never | 43% | 32% | 30% | ||||
| I ignore rules that get in my way. | Very false or Somewhat false | 84% | 69% | 60% | ||||
| Note: Baseline data based on survey results from 2009-10 and 2010-11 school years. | ||||||||
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.”
From sixth to 12th grade, the percentage of students who said it was important to be honest with their parents, “even if they become upset or you get punished,” dropped from 96 to 78 percent. As for stealing — “if you can get away with it” — the percentage of honest students dropped from 95 to 84, and the percent willing to ignore unfavorable rules increased from 16 to 40 percent.
Samantha Madhosingh, a McLean clinical psychologist focused on children and adolescents, cautioned that teenagers’ brains are still developing. “When adolescents make impulsive, silly mistakes, it’s part of their biology, not just something they’re taking out on the parent,” she said.
She warned against “helicopter parents” who don’t trust teens to make their own decisions.
County PTA President Ramona Morrow agreed, and said parents and the schools should work together to fight unethical habits; but she feared poor decisions like cheating and lying developed from parents who duck out too early in the process.
“It’s ‘Oh, I’ve been a stay-at-home-mom, now I can go back to work because they’re old enough to be home alone,’ so there’s less interaction with the kids, who are meeting new kids,” Morrow said. “It gives the student more opportunities to make poor choices.”
