The Shadow Scholar

[Maggie]

This is an interesting, and on a certain level scary, essay (but it explains a lot):

The Shadow Scholar

Editor's note: Ed Dante is a pseudonym for a writer who lives on the East Coast. Through a literary agent, he approached The Chronicle wanting to tell the story of how he makes a living writing papers for a custom-essay company and to describe the extent of student cheating he has observed. In the course of editing his article, The Chronicle reviewed correspondence Dante had with clients and some of the papers he had been paid to write. In the article published here, some details of the assignment he describes have been altered to protect the identity of the student.

"thanx so much for uhelp ican going to graduate to now".

Super. :roll:

[SubGod22]

Very interesting...

[RoyalShock]

Wow. Next time I or a loved one is in the hospital I may have a question or two for the nurses!

I knew this type of thing went on but didn't realize it was at this high a level. For a lot of reasons I think education in this country is a mess and in need of reform. Hopefully this disclosure will help water the seeds of reform.

[Maggie]

Well I think he hits the nail on the head when he says that many young Americans are pathetic when it comes to writing English. They’re terrible, in part, because they never had to do much of it prior to college (and some of their teachers can’t write a lick either). Of all the failings of public education, that may be the worst.

I also find it fascinating that the guy knows very little about the vast array of subjects he gets paid to write papers on. Nevertheless, the papers, apparently, get good marks. That doesn’t speak very well of the effort that goes into evaluating them.

I had to laugh when he admits to puffing up his writing – turning what should be a sentence into paragraph or more. Sounds just like most academic research or legal briefs I read (some of them my own first drafts).

[SubGod22]

Well I think he hits the nail on the head when he says that many young Americans are pathetic when it comes to writing English. They’re terrible, in part, because they never had to do much of it prior to college (and some of their teachers can’t write a lick either). Of all the failings of public education, that may be the worst.

I also find it fascinating that the guy knows very little about the vast array of subjects he gets paid to write papers on. Nevertheless, the papers, apparently, get good marks. That doesn’t speak very well of the effort that goes into evaluating them.

I had to laugh when he admits to puffing up his writing – turning what should be a sentence into paragraph or more. Sounds just like most academic research or legal briefs I read (some of them my own first drafts).

I was always asked/told to cut it down when I did that on papers. Maybe not always, but most of my teachers graded down on that. The ones that didn't I got high scores with because I could stretch out a paper with the best of them. Helped a few friends get thru some things as well.

I think that's one reason I always enjoyed writing papers and doing research. Maybe I'm in the wrong business...

[The Mad Hatter]

Wow. Next time I or a loved one is in the hospital I may have a question or two for the nurses!

I knew this type of thing went on but didn't realize it was at this high a level. For a lot of reasons I think education in this country is a mess and in need of reform. Hopefully this disclosure will help water the seeds of reform.

Unfortunately, I don't see this kind of account changing anything because the problem is not that people haven't known that this is going on, it is much bigger than that.

In my mind, the core problem has been the steady move of higher education away from being run on a model of public good and more on a model of business. Public funding for education has been steadily declining for some time now. At the same time, the goal of getting a college education has shifted away from becoming an educated person to having a piece of paper that gets you a job (even with graduate degrees). This creates a situation where universities have difficulty weeding out students who engage in these practices, because they need their tuition dollars in order to make budgets work, while students have little incentive to actually learn so long as they get the degree. The moral qualms about cheating diminish as students see college as product (degree) they are buying.

As long as higher education is acting as a retailer of degrees purchased by students instead of a community of learning, these problems will continue. And as long as the business community uses a college education as a benchmark for meriting employment at jobs that have no obvious need for a college education, that system will be hard to reverse.

[RoyalShock]

As long as higher education is acting as a retailer of degrees purchased by students instead of a community of learning, these problems will continue. And as long as the business community uses a college education as a benchmark for meriting employment at jobs that have no obvious need for a college education, that system will be hard to reverse.

BINGO!

And by extention, get secondary educators (and state BOEs) to quit making high school a college prep program for virtually all students.

[Maggie]

You both make valid points.

[ShockBand]

As long as higher education is acting as a retailer of degrees purchased by students instead of a community of learning, these problems will continue. And as long as the business community uses a college education as a benchmark for meriting employment at jobs that have no obvious need for a college education, that system will be hard to reverse.

BINGO!

And by extention, get secondary educators (and state BOEs) to quit making high school a college prep program for virtually all students.

AMEN Royal! Not every kid in public school needs to go to college, nor necessarily wants to go to college. Now, for many jobs, some further training might be necessary, but high schools right now are generally in "college prep" mode for everyone. We could certainly do a better job of providing appropriate technical type training and have kids more job ready, including having math and language arts classes tailored more to their area of focus. A kid who want to be a mechanic needs some good math skills, but not necessarily calculus.

In my action research class last fall from Pitt State, since it was online and they needed a last minute replacement, they got a research specialist from the College of Ed at KU to run the class. I went in dreading it, and finished the class knowing it was one of the most exhausting, grinding, and beneficial classes I had ever taken. One of the big things I was constantly rewriting was to work on the "technical" flow of what I was writing. Any sentences that seemed to suffer from puffery got sent back with notes to shorten and simplify.

Somehow we have to work to help kids realize that a good education can be a way to a better life, both financially and otherwise, as it was for me. Unfortunately, I think too many kids think they are entitled to a diploma or degree just on the basis of showing up, and not for earning it through getting the work done in class. We have lost a lot of our "hunger" when it comes to the drive and zeal to learn - we want the easy way out. I do my best every day to fight that attitude with my middle schoolers, to varying degrees of success.

[Maggie]

I think everyone makes very good points. A culture that values a college education as a required admission ticket to full economic participation guarantees an endless flow of millions of customers – whether they are fit for college or not. As colleges reach out to the great mass of Americans, they do so as essentially glorified vocational schools, the place where you go to get a good job. A college education becomes a bullet point on a resume and not an end in itself. It is a huge problem – that feeds on itself.

Regarding writing, as I have grown older I have gained a better understanding of its importance. I learned writing is difficult and needs a lot of practice. This generation of students has been raised on multiple-choice tests and does them very well, because the format is familiar. By contrast, these students turn to formal writing only occasionally, and for them it's a strange and alien task. No wonder their writing is often so poor. I am sure there are exceptions, but there is little emphasis on writing in education. Even most universities let students get away with far too little writing. And this carries over after these students graduate. For example, law firms will often send first year associates to legal writing courses because even though these young men and women graduated from highly regarded schools their writing skills are strikingly sub par. I hated writing when I was younger – and believe it or not – don’t particularly care for it now. But I benefited from a few mentors who took the time to show me how to refine my writing, stressed how important it was, and gave me the tools to improve on my own.

I have ghosted countless admission essays as favors for friends and family. I used to write them on my own and hand them over to the prospective student. That doesn’t happen anymore. Now I require that the student compose the first, second, and even third draft – and I simply provide suggestions, hints, and edit. All along attempting to stress the fact that they should, even though it is hard, take writing seriously because if they don’t sooner or later it will catch up to them.

[ShoxFan963]

Somehow we have to work to help kids realize that a good education can be a way to a better life, both financially and otherwise, as it was for me. Unfortunately, I think too many kids think they are entitled to a diploma or degree just on the basis of showing up, and not for earning it through getting the work done in class. We have lost a lot of our "hunger" when it comes to the drive and zeal to learn - we want the easy way out. I do my best every day to fight that attitude with my middle schoolers, to varying degrees of success.

You hit the nail on the head there. Kids are just memorizing the material until they have a test over it. If something is not in a form of instant gratification, they will find something that is. They do not understand the importance of education and they do not have a sense of urgency over it. Parents are partly responsible for this. A kid comes home with a bad grade, and the parents say "get the grade up" not learn the material so they can put it to good use.

[kcshocker11]

Hmmmm, why does Creighton come to mind?