Attention Academics: Who's Really Behind Your Students' Papers?

Fred Butler over at Hip and Thigh blogged about a guy who writes term papers for college and graduate students for a living. This anonymous ghost-writer who tells his side of the story:

The Shadow Scholar

I'm not sure what was more interesting, the article or the comments from the educators that follow after. Be sure to read them both. My wife, who is a former public school teacher enjoyed reading it more than I did since she was a firsthand witness to the deleterious effects that mandatory end of grade testing and other performance-oriented measurement tools had on both students and teachers. In my opinion, one of the most disturbing parts of the article was when the ghost writer who goes by the pseudonym "Dante" said this:

. . . it's hard to determine which course of study is most infested with cheating. But I'd say education is the worst. I've written papers for students in elementary-education programs, special-education majors, and ESL-training courses. I've written lesson plans for aspiring high-school teachers, and I've synthesized reports from notes that customers have taken during classroom observations. I've written essays for those studying to become school administrators, and I've completed theses for those on course to become principals. In the enormous conspiracy that is student cheating, the frontline intelligence community is infiltrated by double agents. (Future educators of America, I know who you are.)

Well there you have it: America's future educators hard at work; that is, hard at work learning how to cheat the system so that they can later make money off the the system that they successfully cheated while telling the students that are subject to that same system that there are severe penalties for cheating that system. Oh the hypocrisy! But, of course, on a secular worldview, since we're all just "molecules banging around", it doesn't really matter as long as you don't get caught, right? Now, I can't just point out the utter hypocrisy of secular educators, for "Dante" had this bit to say about seminary students:

I do a lot of work for seminary students. I like seminary students. They seem so blissfully unaware of the inherent contradiction in paying somebody to help them cheat in courses that are largely about walking in the light of God and providing an ethical model for others to follow. I have been commissioned to write many a passionate condemnation of America's moral decay as exemplified by abortion, gay marriage, or the teaching of evolution. All in all, we may presume that clerical authorities see these as a greater threat than the plagiarism committed by the future frocked.

Given the state of what professes to be Christianity in America, this doesn't surprise me at all. Though I wouldn't have been able to sleep had I even seriously considered doing this in seminary, we have to keep in mind that in evangelicalism, false converts are a dime-a-dozen nowadays. Sometimes those false converts turn into full-blown "wolves with a calling". People like this are not only cheaters in seminary today but they go on to become pastoral goat-herders tomorrow that cheat men out of eternal life through various false teachings and worldly amusements. Just "visit" the Museum of Idolatry for some examples.

Also, what "Dante" says about most students' inability to articulate themselves intelligently and coherently is consistent with what I've observed in our on campus weekly evangelism:

You would be amazed by the incompetence of your students' writing. I have seen the word "desperate" misspelled every way you can imagine. And these students truly are desperate. They couldn't write a convincing grocery list, yet they are in graduate school. They really need help. They need help learning and, separately, they need help passing their courses. But they aren't getting it.

For those of you who have ever mentored a student through the writing of a dissertation, served on a thesis-review committee, or guided a graduate student through a formal research process, I have a question: Do you ever wonder how a student who struggles to formulate complete sentences in conversation manages to produce marginally competent research? How does that student get by you?

And then he goes on to say this:

I live well on the desperation, misery, and incompetence that your educational system has created.

You have to appreciate such brutal honesty. Its amazing how people can make a living off of a broken system. But given the fact that we live in a broken world, again, I'm not surprised.