Cell-phone cheating real potential

School districts struggling to regulate cellular phones can just picture it: students sharing snapshots of exams, simple text-messaging replacing crib sheets.

College students have been caught using the devices to text-message test answers to friends. Some high school students in China did the same on a college entrance exam. The College Board even advised U.S. high schools in April to ban cell phones from students’ desks during Advanced Placement exams, citing the cheating potential.

Mindful of such examples, school leaders are not taking any chances, with some moving to stamp out the possibility of high-tech cheating before it begins.

“Who would have thought about some of these capabilities in the hands of students only a year ago?” said Deborah Frazier, a school trustee for Carroll School District in Southlake, Texas, which recently tightened its rules. “The technology jumped and the kids are using it. They change faster than we can change policy to keep up with it.”

In the Carroll School District, students’ phones must be turned off during the day. Students can make calls with permission from a teacher or administrator. If a cell phone is confiscated, it will cost $15 to get it back, which is becoming a more common deterrent in some districts.

Last year, the policy said students couldn’t use the phones during the day. This year’s message: Off means off.

The Carroll policy mirrors those of many districts, including Dallas, where students can bring cell phones to campus but must have them turned off during the school day.

For years, many school districts banned the phones but were unable to ignore that students brought them to school anyway. And many parents wanted their children to have phones, or at least access to them.

But today, cell phone users are able to communicate silently — and extremely quickly — through text messaging.

Need an answer to a quiz? No problem. It’s just a few keystrokes away and can often be done under a desk while a student is staring straight ahead.

The Internet-ready and camera phones, meanwhile, create an entirely new temptation for looking up answers or photographing tests, school leaders fear.

Candice Rosenkranz zips dozens of text messages daily from her shiny silver cell phone. This summer, Candice, a sophomore at Carroll High, also photographs friends with her new palm-sized color picture phone.

Think of it as a mobile yearbook and messaging center. She even talks on it occasionally.

Candice and her friends say they’ve heard of some students using the devices to cheat on tests but that the practice is not common.

While experts say such cyber-cheating has cropped up more on college campuses, officials say it’s only a matter of time before it becomes practice among high school students.

About 40 percent of 11- to 17-year-olds nationwide have a cell phone, according to the most recent Mobile User Survey conducted by the Yankee Group, a Boston-based telecommunications research firm.

Some school districts nationwide are even responding directly to the fear of the picture phones’ capabilities. If it’s not a cheating tool, some fear the invasion of privacy. There have been some incidents of students taking photos in bathrooms and locker rooms.

The King Philip Regional School District near Boston and the Palm Beach County school district in Florida have either banned or have considered banning camera phones altogether. Some schools in California also have banned camera phones.

A group of University of Maryland students admitted to cheating on a college accounting exam using text messaging.

University officials said students brought cell phones into an exam and then used them to contact friends outside the classroom. Friends then looked up an answer key that had been posted online by the professor after the exam started. The friends messaged answers back to the classroom.

The students were later caught when a fake answer key was posted.

Linda Barrabee, a senior analyst for the Yankee Group, said a recent survey showed that nearly 80 percent of teens have text-messaging capabilities on their phones. More than half of them are active text-message users.

“Teens have a strong peer network, and this lets them stay connected with their friends,” she said.