HS student kicked out of honors class for cheating; parents sue

The question he cheated on:

Explain the concept of personal responsibility, using your parents as an example.

 

To say nothing of a note on his permanent record that he cheated in an honors program

 

"I DEMAND A NEW QUESTION!!!"

 

Shocking, America is going down the toilet faster then IJAG responds to cut me down.

 

Not to be the a-hole here, but this is a sophomore copying a friend's homework. As a journalist, I know it's textbook plagiarism, but -- it's a sophomore copying his friend's homework.

It's not like he bought a term paper or cheated on a test. Personally, I like the school's second-chance policy. It gives the kids a chance to learn their lesson and go on. The school handled it well. As a parent I probably would've been shocked at the severity of the punishment at first but grateful that he got another chance to stay in the program.

 

My best friend and I had a system for every class we were in together: I'd do the even-numbered questions, and he'd do the odd. Then we'd rewrite each other's answers with completely different wording. We never let anyone in on the system because we didn't think we could trust them to responsibly rewrite the questions with completely different wording or to get the questions right.

It saved a little time, particularly on questions that required research to answer, but it also taught us the material. Moreover, my friend was a great student, but I was a smart slacker. But for those classes where we had the system, I worked my ass off so that my answers wouldn't bring down his grades. To be honest, I'm pretty sure he came up with his own answers a lot of the time anyway. But he made me a better student because I cheated with him. It's weird how that works.

 

"I hope you know that this will go down on your permanent record."

Oh yeah? Well, don't get so distressed. Did I happen to mention that I'm impressed?

 

It's an honors program. It's designed to see which sophomores can handle the workload without copying their friends' homework.

 

From the father:

Riiiiiight ...

 

Silly me. I actually did my own work when I was in school. What was I thinking?

The kid and his father should both be embarrassed by their behavior.

 

Note: KIDDING ALERT!

Now I know why I find your baseball economics arguments so not-compelling ... they're your own!

 

Nah. You just like games where rules are stacked to favor one player over the other.