This is a story written by a mother who enrolled her son in Democracy Prep in Harlem. She is a Nigerian-born journalist. She contends that the school’s rigid discipline was excessive and that her son spent hours every day in detention.

It is a harrowing story. No doubt, Democracy Prep has another version. I welcome its response to this article. I will post it.

She writes:

“On my first visit to observe class I was struck by the robotic and monotonous style of teaching whereby teachers are programmed to literally clock every second of the class through a count down, while simultaneously monitoring every movement and body language of the young students.

“The students are supposed to respond in non-verbal coded signals called : spirit fingers – a twirling of all ten fingers in the direction of the scholar being supported – means a ‘show of support,’ brain match – is the simultaneous waving of the thumb and the pinkie – it means ‘I agree with you,’ track your speaker means ‘focusing on who’s speaking,’ pound it out – a chorus of pounding on the desks – means ‘the question is answered correctly’; and so on.

“So now I understand fully well why my 12 year old who is very creative and loves to be in motion would feel like he’s in prison; having to endure ten hours of monotonous class sessions daily without any sports activities or recess. Scholars have to eat their lunch in their respective classroom/homeroom and are only given fifteen to twenty minutes.”

And more:

“The endless list of reasons for which students can get railroaded into detention and ultimately suspension include: “not spontaneous on queue,” “clapping three times instead of twice as prompted,” “slouching over the desk,” “looking back at another student,” “talking,” “mumbling to yourself,” “fake coughing or sneezing,” “asking to go to the rest room,” “raising your hands too long,” “clearing your throat” or “breathing too hard.”

“I found this preposterous.

“So the process of suspension usually starts as follows. A teacher would declare “that’s one,” meaning a deduction, then if a student interjects “what did I do,”? The teacher would respond: “that’s two.”

“The third deduction automatically sends a student to “COLUMBIA,” the detention room managed by two African-America male coaches.

“All the Advisory/home rooms are named after a University. My son is in UCONN. I’m not sure why the detention room is called COLUMBIA. And by the way all the teachers at this charter school are white and from out of state. The school’s administrators did manage to get two coaches that are African-American from the New York City area. They are the two in charge of the detention room.”

Read the article and think about this:

The US Department of Education was so impressed by Democracy Prep that it have the charter chain $9.1 million to expand.

Question: With measures that demand total compliance, is Democracy Prep educating for democracy?