Many Teachers Ignore Cheating, Survey Finds

By Mark Stricherz

Nearly half the high school students in a nationwide survey said they believe their teachers sometimes choose to ignore students who are cheating in class. And more than half admitted they had used the Internet to commit plagiarism.

Those were two key findings of a survey of 4,500 high school students from across the country conducted by Donald McCabe, a professor of management at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. He has been tracking student-cheating issues at the college level for decades, but recently turned his attention to how high school students are trying to deceive their teachers and how students believe teachers are reacting to such behavior.

According to Mr. McCabe's survey—which included 14 public and 11 private high schools—47 percent of the students believe teachers sometimes elect not to confront students they know are cheating. Of those students, 26 percent said they believed teachers simply don't want to be bothered by...