Cell Phones In Schools. Yes or No and Why

If students today want to cheat, they have an insidious tool at their disposal: cellphones. More than one third of all teens with cellphones admit to having stored information on them to look at during a test or texting friends about answers, a new"survey"finds. And teens' parents, while realistic about the frequency of cheating in schools, might need to overcome their own blind spots: More than 75 percent of parents responding to the survey say that cellphone cheating happens at their children's school, but only 3 percent believe their own teen is using a cellphone to cheat. Unfortunately, we have already been to lenient with our allowance in technologies and communication, and therefore cheating. Nearly 1 in 4 students thinks that accessing notes on a cellphone, texting friends with answers, or using a phone to search the Internet for answers during a test isn't cheating. Some students say texting during tests is simply as helping one another, as opposed to looking at someone else's paper during an exam, which they consider cheating. We should not allow this to happen, rather, we should try and reverse these changes in schools. Recently, incidents of cheating on tests with the use of cell phones have caused various teachers to examine students" phones when they ring during class. "Although many students find that this policy is infringing on their privacy rights, "it is the only effective way for teachers to easily catch cheating going on during exams. There are a variety of ways students can use cell phones to cheat. "Many students use their smartphones in order to look up definitions, equations or other information during a test. "Others merely text their friends who are taking the same test to ask for the answer to a certain question. "In both of these cases and in most scenarios, the teacher could easily catch cheating by examining a student"s texts or search engine history." Unfortunately, in many states, it is illegal for schools to search students" phones. The only case in which they could is in an emergency (a situation "involving danger of death or serious physical injury to any person that requires access to the electronic device information"), or with a search warrant issued by a judge that specifically permits them to search that student"s phone. You have the right to keep your digital devices private, even if you use your phone when you are not supposed to, you break any other school rule, you cause a disruption by using your phone, or your school wants to search your phone to investigate another student's misconduct. These tests have direct results. Many students who are incapable of getting into certain programs and universities are allowed in, and many students who do not have access to these magnificent methods of cheating, are put at an immediate disadvantage, even if they are more knowledgeable than others. Those students who got in by cheating, often drop out of the program, and those who didn"t get in suffer from boredom in an easier classroom. There is endless evidence proving cheating and misuse of cell phones, and we know that by removing cell phones, we can prevent and remove cheating and lying in the classroom.