Amid a sea of moms and dads wearing T-shirts declaring themselves “Proud charter parents” and kids waving handmade signs that read, “I am College Bound,” Daniel Clark grabbed a microphone at P.S. 92 in Harlem earlier this month and told the more than 150 people gathered for a Department of Education hearing that his son Daniel Jr. and four friends now proudly call themselves the “Geek Five.”
Mr. Clark says his son was a “super slacker” before he arrived at the Democracy Prep charter school two and half years ago. But the eighth grader “now goes around telling everyone he’s going to be mayor–and he believes it.”