High Schoolers Lying, Cheating and Telling

NewsMax ^ | 10/22/02 | Limbacher

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

High School kids are lying, cheating and committing petty thievery, and are not ashamed of it, according to a study released today by the Josephson Institute of Ethics.

The biennial study found that 74 percent of those polled admitted to cheating on an exam once in the past year. Nearly four out of 10 adolescents acknowledged stealing during that time, and 93 percent confessed they lied to their parents.

Half the respondents actually approved of lying occasionally to save money, while 37 percent were willing to lie to land a good job. And virtually all of them - 95 percent - thought they would get away with the dishonesty.

Tom DeCair, spokesman for the nonprofit institute, which is based in Marina del Rey, Calif., said "Parents cheat on taxes, teachers deceive and sleep with their students, corporate CEOs swindle money ... even priests have violated the trust of children. We are raising today's cheats and thieves to become tomorrow's leaders."

Hmmmm ... lying, stealing, sleeping around - sounds like yesterday’s leaders already set this example, as far as we can tell, but more on that later.

Students confronted with the numbers made excuses, saying that the pressure to do well in school makes them do just about anything, but that excuse holds no water; the misbehavior extends even down to pre-teens.

"I know this one kid, when he don't have any money and he wants, like, some chips, he just goes in and jacks them," said 10 year-old Jocabo Banner, who was interviewed by Southern California's Press Enterprise.

Aside from the distinct lack of knowledge regarding the English language displayed by the young boy, I think we can safely say the study’s results are scary.

Oh, by the way, the Institute did not mention that all of these numbers have increased dramatically since Bill Clinton spent eight years in the White House doing many of the same things - including lying under oath to a Grand Jury - for which he was never punished.

Not that we’re implying anything ... or inferring anything ... or alleging anything ... or pointing anything out ... or insinuating anything … or hinting at anything ... or intimating anything ... or suggesting a causal relationship ... or making a connection between the two ... or anything like that.

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

...Bill Clinton spent eight years in the White House doing many of the same things...

[john in missouri]

93 percent confessed they lied to their parents.

And how many of the remainder were telling the truth?

I'd love to see a similar study of home schoolers.

[lexington minuteman 1775]

John, you might check George Barna's websight.I don't know if he has done a poll on home schoolers but the stuff he has polled on, and he is a Christian pollster is that the statistics for born again believers in most areas of family life are not all the different from the world.And it is shocking, because our moral compass got messed up somewhere.He believes it will take decades of church teaching to get it back to what it used to be.We are no longer the salt of the earth.We are just plain salty.

[MurryMom]

Here's an example of the role model Repukie politicians advocate for today's youth:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61903-2002Oct21.html

[newgeezer]

Be skeptical of these "polls." Such surveys about drugs and sex are routinely administered by the schools. But, if what happened at our school is commonplace, the resulting "statistics" are likely skewed way out of whack. In our case, the school -- a public middle school -- administrators notified us about the survey, gave us a URL to examine it, and gave us the opportunity to exclude our kids from the survey. We and a great many other parents didn't want our kids being asked all sorts of leading and/or graphic questions about sex and drugs. So, we opted out.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that those behind the survey prefer the results to be skewed to the left.

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

Read this, it's along the same lines.

[Nyralthotep]

Why is everyone so suprised? If the events in Genesis are true then at one point 100% of the population of the earth was lying. You somehow expect people now to be better?

[Stone Mountain]

Gee, just like when we were in high school. Real shocking...