Their cheating little hearts

The eye-opener isn't that students cheat. They've been cheating since the School of Athens and Socrates. The shocker is they think they can cheat and still be a "good person."

The problem isn't cheating.

It's the loss of a moral compass among students.

According to a Josephson Institute study, the competition among students is greater than ever before and the payoff for cutting corners is sometimes viewed as worth the risk. Even shoplifting is seen as OK, especially since 35 percent of boys and 26 percent of girls said they've done it. Meanwhile, at school a whopping 64 percent said they had cheated. But — the kicker — 93 percent said they felt good about their ethics and 77 percent said, when it comes to doing the right thing, they were "better than most people I know."

Hello?

The problem is the age-old dilemma. When we judge other people, we judge them by their actions. But when we judge ourselves, we judge ourselves by our motives. And most cheaters are able to rationalize their behavior and justify their needs.

Some, of course, will quickly try to draw a correlation between the new breed of scofflaws and the ebbing influence of religion in the lives of young people. And parallels probably do exist. But the big concern is that nobody — pastors, parents, teachers, peers, the media, the movies or anyone else — is interested in teaching young people the difference between proper and improper behavior.

Is that because older people are misbehaving so much they feel hypocritical about instructing youths? The book — and survey samples — are still open on that question.

The real solution is that somebody — maybe everybody — needs to step it up and get involved with the moral training of upcoming generations. Platitudes abound, of course, but one needs to be drilled home time and again with examples and personal experience. That is, honesty is indeed the best policy."

A lot of new kids on the block don't seem to believe it.

It's time for adults to teach the idea.

But more than that, apparently it's time for adults to actually believe the notion themselves.