When cheating becomes the norm, normal kids cheat. During the summer of 2020, the administrative team for my school had time to plan for fully remote classes. They made no provision for valid testing. Teachers asked questions and suggested solutions, but no answers ever came. Even worse, the administration kept insisting that students be shown grace. In education-speak, grace means dialing down the accountability.
North Royalton students are generally honest and respectful. I taught college-prep and AP courses, so my students were smart and ambitious, but not necessarily better people. Most teachers changed their assessments for remote learning. Some tried to hold the line by making it harder to cheat with more extended response questions, while others threw in the towel and went for multiple-choice questions. It wasn’t long before this system corrupted students who wouldn’t have considered cheating.
To compound the educational dereliction, the administration gave students the option of remaining remote, after we went back to a hybrid schedule. Those remote students remained in classes with in-person students. The remote students cheated their asses off, while the responsible students took tests and quizzes in class. For three quarters of a school year, some students took minimal interest in their education, but got the same or better grades than students who attended class. I don’t stand by any of the grades I gave that year.
