'Blatant copying' in coursework

BBC News reported that mass plagiarism is going on at colleges and universities via the Internet. According to the Qualification and Curriculum Authority (QCA), there was even teacher support in the practice with the use of scaffolding, a writing/essay template. Students were found to have similar, if not identical, sentence and paragraph structure using the scaffolding approach. The examiners acknowledged that it was o.k to give students scaffolding to those that needed it but cited that giving it to all students was a concerned.

I could not help but compare this to special education at the K-12 level. At our school, we have students who are identifed special ed who have a calculator accommodation. The student gets an A with the course work with this accommodation. A non-IEP student has no accommodation and is not allowed to use the calculator. Next comes the angry parent of non-IEP student, finds out (via his child) that some students get to use calculators and wants his child to have access since others have access. While we know our canned response to these parents, it not easy when it comes down to the various honor accolades knowing that one student has been given assistance (while legal) and another student has not. I guess I have trouble accepting that all can't have access which is why I think the British teachers got in trouble as mentioned in this article. The British teachers started giving the scaffolding accommodation to all; however, this is only one small part of the problem.