Study: Teen Morality Scores Low

L O S   A N G E L E S, Oct. 16, 2000 -- Many of the nation’s high schoolstudents lie and cheat a lot, and many show up for class drunk,according to preliminary results of a nationwide teen characterstudy released today.

Among those surveyed, seven in 10 students admitted cheating on a test atleast once in the past year, and nearly half said they had done somore than once, according to the nonprofit Joseph & Edna JosephsonInstitute of Ethics.

“This data reveals a hole in the moral ozone,” said MichaelJosephson, founder and president of the Marina Del Rey-basedorganization.

On the other hand, the results were not significantly worse thanon the last test in 1998 — the first time that has happened sincethe group began testing in 1992.

Ethics Report Card

“The good news appears that it’s peaked,” Josephson said.“The bad news is that it’s horribly high.”

The Report Card on the Ethics of American Youth found that92 percent of the 8,600 students surveyed lied to their parents inthe past year. Seventy-eight percent said they had lied to ateacher, and more than one in four said they would lie to get ajob.

Nearly one in six students said they had shown up for classdrunk at least once in the past year. Sixty-eight percent admittedthey hit someone because they were angry. Nearly half — 47 percent— said they could get a gun if they wanted to.

Josephson said the results amounted to the formula for a “toxiccocktail” involving “kids who think it’s OK to hit someone whenthey’re angry, who may be drunk at school when they do it, and whocan also get their hands on a gun.”

A Call For All to Pay Attention

Josephson stopped short of assigning blame to a particulargroup, but he said parents, teachers and coaches need to payspecial attention because they have the most significantinteractions with youngsters.

“I’m not saying there aren’t some out there doing their best,”he said. “But if all three were doing their best, we wouldn’t havethis problem.”

The survey, conducted this year, involved students in gradesnine through 12 in both public and private schools. Participatingschools handed out surveys with 57 questions that students couldsubmit anonymously.

The results had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentagepoints.

The high school results, along with those for middle schools,will be included in a series of three finals reports to be releasedlater this year.