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The Cheat Goes on at Harvard

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Photo Credit: Patricia Drury

Photo Credit: Patricia Drury

Cheaters never win — but they get into Harvard!

Nearly half of the school’s incoming freshmen admitted to cheating on homework, exams or other assignments in their young academic careers, according to a survey by the Ivy League institution’s student newspaper.

“Some of the newest members of that community are already guilty of academic dishonesty,” The Harvard Crimson declared in its summary of the findings.

The elite institution is still reeling from a 2012 cheating scandal in which dozens of kids swapped and plagiarized answers during a course called “Introduction to Congress.”

An estimated 70 students were booted when the scandal blew up. And some unrepentant cheaters claimed they merely “collaborated” on the exam, and vowed to sue the university.

Read more from this story HERE.

Angler Gets Jail Time for Cheating at Fishing Tournament

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Photo Credit: parkrapidsenterprise

Photo Credit: parkrapidsenterprise

A Long Prairie angler long suspected of cheating at fishing tournaments was given seven days in jail Monday for cheating at the Park Rapids American Legion Community Fishing Derby this winter.

Alfred “Tom” Mead, 72, pled guilty to a felony charge of Theft By Swindle May 20, for sneaking a previously caught fish into the tournament Feb. 2. He has two prior gaming convictions and a decade-long trail of suspicion about his tournament winnings.

“Your conduct had a major impact on these things (fishing tournaments),” Judge Robert Tiffany scolded him. “I hope you realize the seriousness of your conduct.”Cheating, the judge said. “takes the enjoyment and joy out of it for those who bring their kids” and honest participants.

Mead is to report to the Hubbard County jail in one week.

He will be on probation for four years, during which he is barred from the Legion Club, was fined $200 and ordered to pay a $75 public defender co-payment.

Read more from this story HERE.

35 Atlanta Public School Administrators and Teachers Indicted for Cheating

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Photo Credit: AP

Juwanna Guffie was sitting in her fifth-grade classroom taking a standardized test when, authorities say, the teacher came around offering information and asking the students to rewrite their answers. Juwanna rejected the help.

“I don’t want your answers, I want to take my own test,” Juwanna told her teacher, according to Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard.

On Friday, Juwanna — now 14 — watched as Fulton County prosecutors announced that a grand jury had indicted the Atlanta Public Schools’ ex-superintendent and nearly three dozen other former administrators, teachers, principals and other educators of charges arising from a standardized test cheating scandal that rocked the system.

Former Superintendent Beverly Hall faces charges including conspiracy, making false statements and theft because prosecutors said some of the bonuses she received were tied to falsified scores. Hall retired just days before the findings of a state probe were released in mid-2011. A nationally known educator who was named Superintendent of the Year in 2009, Hall has long denied knowing about the cheating or ordering it.

During a news conference Friday, Howard highlighted the case of Juwanna and another student, saying they demonstrated “the plight of many children” in the Atlanta school system. Their stories were among many that investigators heard in hundreds of interviews with school administrators, staff, parents and students during a 21-month-long investigation.

Read more from this story HERE.

Harvard Scandal: Students Punished for Cheating in . . . ‘Introduction to Congress’

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Photo Credit: Patricia DruryHarvard University said Friday it has issued academic sanctions against dozens of students, bringing to a close a cheating scandal that involved the final exam in a class on Congress and drawing criticism from a high-profile alumnus.

he Ivy League school implicated as many as 125 students in the scandal when officials first addressed the issue last year.

The inquiry started after a teaching assistant in a spring semester undergraduate-level government class detected problems in the take-home test, including that students may have shared answers.

In a campus-wide email Friday, Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Michael D. Smith said the school’s academic integrity board had resolved all the cases related to the cheating probe.

He said “somewhat more than half” of the cases involved students who had to withdraw from the college for a period of time.

Read more on this story HERE.

5th Grade Teacher: Helped Students Cheat Because They Were “Dumb As Hell”

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Photo credit: woodleywonderworks

A former fifth-grade teacher implicated in a cheating scandal reportedly gave students the illegal assistance because she thought they were “dumb as hell.”

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, math teacher Shayla Smith was accused of offering students the answers to a test they were taking at the time. She had reportedly been responsible for supervising them while the tests were being completed.

Schajuan Jones, who taught a fourth-grade class across the hall from Smith’s former room, overheard her talking to another teacher about the test.

“The words were, ‘I had to give your kids, or your students, the answers because they’re dumb as hell,’” Jones was quoted as saying about the interaction between Smith and the unidentified third teacher.

A former student also allegedly accused Smith of cheating, adding that the educator offered the girl, now in eighth grade, the answers to a math test in 2010.

Read more from this story HERE.