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CNN Live Today

Cheating 101

Aired August 27, 2002 - 10:36   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Now, another tale of lessons learned, and lost. It began as a writing assignment on botany, but the teacher says something more sinister took root: a cheating scandal made more reprehensible by what was done, and what was undone.
CNN's Jeff Flock explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is my leaves.

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Laura Johnson is not a cheater.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is my bibliography.

FLOCK: When she used outside information on her sophomore botany project, she credited it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I agree with 101 percent -- an a-plus.

FLOCK: But some of her classmates here at Piper High School, outside Kansas City, apparently plagiarized their projects. When their teacher, who had warned the students and their parents they'd get zeros if they cheated, tried to fail them, the parents went to the school board, and the superintendent made teacher Christine Pelton change the grades. Pelton quit, so did nearly a third of the staff in protest.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It has to be that you can't do that.

FLOCK: Guidance counselor Linda Russell was one of those who resigned. She showed us her scrapbook of all the headlines, a newspaper cartoon depicting the school board as worms, and a letter addressed to the home of the cheaters: "Fax your list of students so we will be sure to not hire these future crooks," it said.

LINDA RUSSELL FMR. GUIDANCE COUNSELOR: Yes, they may have gotten by with something at this point, but at some point in life, those consequences will be there for them, and many times later they are much more severe.

FLOCK: We couldn't find a student accused of plagiarism who wanted to go on television, but one family told us off-camera it was never proved that their child cheated. And they challenge the Web site, turnitin.com, that the teacher said proved plagiarism. Now, in the midst of a difficult pregnancy, Pelton is refusing interview requests, Hollywood is pursuing her story, and she's agreed to eventually tell it.

Meantime, just this month, the Piper superintendent resigned under fire, and members of the school board said who support the grade change face recall.

PAM RUTH, RECALL ORGANIZER: We don't want to be represented by people who won't do what's right when it is hard.

FLOCK: Teachers Association president Leona Sigwing points to a tough, new plagiarism policy at the school as something positive, but says everyone has been a loser in this, mostly the children.

RUTH: And it was affecting the students when they would go in public, and that still upsets me.

FLOCK: Indeed, some are taunted as cheats. And because of the controversy, the project's impact on the overall class grade was reduced. As a result, the final grade of students like Laura Johnson went down.

LAURA JOHNSON: I was really angry, because I could have had a better grade, I could have had a better GPA, and the people that supposedly plagiarized their grade went up, and mine went down.

FLOCK: It was supposed to be about botany, but ended up being a painful lesson in life.

I'm Jeff Flock, CNN, Chicago.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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