The culture in many US schools is an adversarial mess where the teachers, administration, and students are in constant conflict over things that should be non-issues. There's often a sense that the primary purpose of school is to grind down any resistance to authority. Comparisons between school and prison aren't typical, but they're certainly not unheard of. Some schools have been known to lock/chain all side/rear exits during the school day to stop students from sneaking out (generally in blatant violation of fire code). Multiple school districts have had to settle lawsuits related to students being strip-searched.
In this culture the kind of system described by the article wasn't just predictable, it was utterly inevitable.
In this culture the kind of system described by the article wasn't just predictable, it was utterly inevitable.