The SAT Scandal

I just finished listening to the Sam Eshagoff interview on 60 Minutes.  Before I comment on the interview, I would like to commend 60 Minutes for decades of worthwhile news and human interest coverage.  60 Minutes remains a leading example of TV at its best.

I am not as positive about either Sam Eshaghoff or ETS.  I’m not sure that Sam has learned his lesson or that he understands the seriousness of what he did.  He does understand he got caught and that seems to have caused some regret.  But anyone who believes that he “saved the lives” of students with awful records by taking the SATs for those students so they could get into schools that were otherwise unachievable, but doesn’t understand that he likely adversely impacted the lives of students who presented honest records but were not accepted because of space taken up by cheaters, doesn’t comprehend the seriousness of his actions.  Students need to be judged on their work; an awful record should not be neutralized or turned into a positive because the student and/or his or her family could pay for what the Nassau County Attorney General rightly calls “an academic hired gun.”  Sam may call his actions saving a life, I call it criminal fraud. That Eshagoff doesn’t get jail time makes sense to me but that his sentence is tutoring economically disadvantaged students on test taking, at what seems to be at his convenience, is too lenient given the fraud involved and the righteous attitude of saving lives presented during the TV interview. Does he realize how wrong and how serious his actions were?

The attitude expressed by ETS on 60 Minutes also needs work.  To be told we should not “overreact” to a system that lacked even minimal security is disconcerting.  I would agree that the vast majority of test takers are honest and therefore that the vast majority of test scores are accurate assessments of test taking capability.  But there clearly is and has been cheating.  That there hasn’t been more cheating does not  seem to be due to the efforts of ETS; rather it is a reflection of most people being honest.  Cheating needs to be dealt with firmly on all levels.  The ETS test taking procedures are being tightened up and that is a positive sign.  But the policy where no action is taken by ETS after the fact against a known cheater leaves much to be desired in my mind.  Basically it says since we didn’t catch you in a timely manner, you get a free pass and are able to enjoy the fruits of your ill gotten gains.  It may take substantial time to catch up with some criminals, including those guilty of white collar crimes. But does it really make sense to say that since we didn’t catch you at the time you took the test, you are free of all repercussions? I don’t think so.

I hope the investigations continue and that as many as possible of the individuals who wrongfully took exams for others are caught and held accountable.  And I hope that ETS is able to tighten procedures and restore the confidence we had in them. As educators we work hard to ensure that academic honesty is maximized.  Part of our mission is to make clear to our students the importance of honesty and its key role in our value system.  But part of our responsibility is also exposing cheating when it takes place and making sure there is accountability.  And I think we all would agree that we can and should do more on both counts.   

Test Takers

I had a terrific experience as a doctoral student. The courses, the faculty, the other students all made for a wonderful educational journey. I was certain economics was the right field for me before I began and I was even more certain by the time I graduated.  Within this wonderful experience, one moment still stands out, not because it directly involved economics, not because it represented an intellectual breakthrough, but rather because I learned an important life lesson.

That moment was when I took my statistics qualifying examination.  That day approximately a dozen students came to take the exam.  The faculty proctor handed out the exam and we all began.  Now the statistics qualifying exam had a reputation for being rigorous but also had a reputation as an exam where typically 5 people passed.  If there were a small number of test takers or a larger number, the results always seemed to be the same—five students passed.  About thirty minutes into a two hour exam, the proctor decided to leave the room while we all continued working on our examinations.  Shortly thereafter one thing changed.  Even though this was not an open book examination, one of the test takers took out the textbook plus a notebook, and began working on the answers with the added support in clear view. What did I do and what did the rest of the class do?  Each of us just kept working on the examination and following the rules.

About an hour later, the proctor returned for the last 30 minutes of the examination period.  Within a few minutes most of us handed in our exams and left the room.  I thought I did well on the exam but nevertheless, was a little apprehensive.   I didn’t say anything to the proctor as I was leaving about the person cheating, and to my knowledge neither did anyone else.  A day or two later, I found out that one of my classmates reported the student who cheated.  His exam was disallowed and I was told he was suspended from the program.  A penalty that was certainly deserved.

When the results of the exam became known about two weeks later, I was relieved to learn that I had passed.  Five students passed this qualifying exam, and going from highest to lowest passing grade, I was number 5.  If the cheater hadn’t been turned in, I assume I would not have passed.

I have been thinking about the Long Island students who paid other students to take the SATs for them.  For a few thousand dollars, they were on the fast track to a much more impressive SAT score and the resulting benefits in terms of gaining admission or being awarded a scholarship.  But very often, just as was the case in my statistics qualifying examination, someone cheating their way to admission or a scholarship likely precluded the person deserving the recognition from receiving it.  In all the publicity regarding the exam takers and those who paid for someone to take the exam, the real potential victims have not been identified. They are the individuals who did everything right, but nevertheless would have been shortchanged out of the positive results of their efforts.  I know it can happen.  It almost happened to me.

I often think that we are not as stringent as we should be in our monitoring and enforcement of academic honesty and I also think that we are often too lenient in the penalties we impose for violations of academic honesty.  If we are to be fair to the individuals who do everything the way it should be done, we (faculty, students, and administrators) need to do more to eliminate cheating. If we turn the other cheek to cheating, we are hurting ourselves and cheating the system that we are part of.

Cheating

Six students from a top Long Island high school each hired the same recent high school graduate to take the SATs for them so that they could submit a higher test score than they would receive on their own as part of their college admissions profile.  I am pleased they were caught but I’m certain that these students are not the only students who have substituted other individuals in their place to take important admissions and other examinations.  What should happen to these high school students?  The punishment should be severe (though I wouldn’t advocate jail time).  How severe?  If they are guilty as charged, I would recommend they should be barred from submitting a SAT test score or a high school transcript for at least a year and during that time they should provide extensive mandatory community service. A course on ethics should also be required.  The test taker should also face at least as severe a punishment.  And if there were any parents that aided and abetted this effort, their punishment should be much more severe. Furthermore, it appears that we need to substantially improve test security so that every possible safeguard is in place to prevent anyone else from taking the place of the student who is supposed to be the test taker.

Academic honesty is a problem in many high schools and in many colleges and universities.  At times, especially since we are dealing with young adults, the plagiarism is unintentional.  At other times, the cheating is both intentional and on-going.  Many teachers and professors will react forcefully to cheating as it happens but at the same time intentionally moderate or eliminate long term consequences.  Often cheating is not reported so as not to tarnish the student’s record and often the punishment is determined based on this cheating being a once in a lifetime occurrence, not a pattern.  Once in a lifetime suggest that a moderate response is appropriate; a pattern suggests there needs to be an escalating response.  How do we know what response is appropriate if the tracking system throughout much of a student’s education is rife with omissions?  We really need to do better so that the message is more clearly and emphatically that academic dishonesty doesn’t pay.

Students are very aware of who cheats and students can help foster an environment where academic honesty is valued but at the same time, I don’t think we should count on students alone to play a lead role in moderating the cheating of other students.

What can we do?  Every incident of cheating—unless it is clearly not intentional—should be reported.  The penalty for an individual offense should be determined by the faculty member but there needs to be an additional penalty triggered by repeat offenses.  Every student can make a mistake and learn from his/her mistakes.  But more than one occurrence should be accompanied by a zero tolerance response that should, if it continues, result in suspension and, if justified, dismissal.

The penalty should also escalate as students advance in their education.  We should all be more tolerant of a high school student or a first year college student making a mistake and much less tolerant of an advanced undergraduate or graduate student having an ethical lapse.  And in certain fields such as law and medicine, the penalty for academic dishonesty, if proven, should be immediate dismissal.

All of us comment with dismay on the widespread culture where academic dishonesty is more or less prevalent.  But to change the environment we need to do more than comment and more than deal with individual occurrences.  We need as a community to work together, to report and to track academic dishonesty as it happens.  If we are determined to reduce academic dishonesty, our actions can help make it happen.

Level Playing Field

Early this week, a graduating senior came to my office to ask for a recommendation to Law School.  Since I had known the excellent work done by this student since he entered Hofstra, I was pleased to say yes.  In the course of the conversation, I asked about his LSAT score which turned out to be OK but not spectacular and then asked whether he had taken an LSAT review course.  I ask any student who contacts me about coming to Hofstra and any student who talks to me about graduate school or Law School after Hofstra, the same question: have you taken a review course.  When I was taking the SATs or the GREs, I just showed up for the exam.  None of my friends took review courses and as far as I can remember, none of my friends ever studied for these exams.  The world has clearly changed.