Piper Plagiarism Scandal
 

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/14/us...-s-values.html

In Piper, Kansas, many students were saved from the full concequences of plagiarism because their parents complained. Am I the only one that finds this wrong?

Still reading through article to try and understand the whole situation. My initial reaction on reading the first page is: no, you're not the only person who finds this wrong. This is sickening. There's enough lack of critical thinking ability without systematic protection of students who refuse to develop said ability.

It's wrong, yes, but it sounds like the major issue is that students need to be taught what plagarism is Changing one sentance into two is not the same as doing your own research and writing your own report. Copying words you don't understand instead of finding out what they mean is in some ways the heart of the matter, not just a symptom of it. on the other hand, those lessons really need to be part of the english curriculum, not biology.

I'm not sure about Piper, but where I'm from they teach you about plagiarism up until you graduate High school. They're even touching on it in my college English course.

they certainly should be, but apparently one student went on national TV claiming he had not committed plagarism because he had turned one sentance into two from the article he was copying from. If they are covering it they are not covering it sufficiently.

I also want to bring up the last sentence in this article. The school board is elected, not hired. This "they work for us, so they do what we say" attitude is only teaching the next generation that whining about things that are their fault will make things better.

A company board of directors is also elected by shareholders, but any company whose board starts trying to second guess the actions of individual employees is in for serious trouble. it seems to me that the community should begin work on a recall election for the board for overstepping their authority.

No, the problem is parents appealing to the Principal in order to get their kids grades changed. If parents can appeal to overturn a grade they don't like, then grades mean nothing, and the students feel no need to learn.

This is sickening. Grades aren't about winning or losing, they're about measuring knowledge. The students didn't win by plagiarizing - they lost.

There are a number of issues- the kids don't seem to know what plagarism means, teh parents have no respect for the teacher as an academic authority in their children's lives, and teh school board is interfering beyond the scope of their authority (or at least what should be beyond the scope of their authority) The question of why would 27% of the class commit plagarism, especially with most of the apparently being unaware they had done so, however does seem to be the base problem. i don't believe the school board would have been moved to intervene for only a couple of kids.

Well, given that school policy is to begin teaching kids how not to plagiarize starting in 4th grade, if these kids haven't figured it out yet, then they needed a stark lesson. I don't mind people not knowing any given bit of information. But being able to analyze, synthesize, and communicate original thought is extremely important, and the students and parents in this situation are only hurting themselves (not to mention the rest of the class whose grades were also altered by the school board - and in a negative way).