KIPP and the Like: Knowledge is Power Programs or Kids In Perpetual Punishment?

I would like to know why the educational deformers and the charter schools they favor are allowed to discipline children in harmful and humiliating ways.  

Charters very often rule by strict discipline and an inordinate amount of suspensions.  Some schools enforce the SLANT system (sit up, listen, ask and answer questions, nod and track the speaker with your eyes).  Valerie Strauss recently pointed out at Washingtonpost.com how the Noble Charter School network in Chicago has been trigger happy with suspensions.  If kids slouched, reported a minute late or avoided eye contact with the teacher, they faced suspension, coming at $5 a pop.  Some kids were priced out of the system before it was dropped as a "distraction." 

KIPP also enforces discipline in highly controversial ways.  Two children, 5 and 7 years, at KIPP Star Washington Heights Elementary School had infractions.  They were placed in the padded cell which, according to the family, paved the way for panic attacks.   The Coney Island Prep Charter shames kids by making them wear Orange shirts (sure hope there's no Fighting Irish there).  Infractions are measured in terms of colors of the spectrum as well as by deducting PRIDE dollars from kids' "paychecks."


U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, and Attorney General, Eric Holder, recently announced new federal guidelines on school discipline.  Suspensions have disproportionately affected minority students.  The federal government is fearful that this type of rule enforcement may put some children on a pipeline pointed towards prison.  The Education Department recognizes disparities in suspension rates from state to state. It has proposed grants totaling $50 million to more than a thousand schools to better train staff on "research-based" strategies to improve the behavior of students as well as the overall climate of the school.  Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if Core-aligned tests and the attendant test prep motivate more kids to aggressively bust out of their seats or become sociopathic.

I don't know exactly what kind of people are driving educational reform in the United States today, but it stands to reason that one should be worried, especially when they seem intent on spreading their management style at our expense and the expense of our children.  But just to show you that I'm not prejudice against them, I would like to suggest a new tool that seems to match their needs for correctional discipline at their charter schools.