The link goes to a different essay from the book. The actual titular essay is here: http://ry4an.org/readings/short/student/
The content still doesn't make a helluva lot of sense though:
Students, like black people, have immense unused power. They could, theoretically, insist on participating in their own education. They could make academic freedom bilateral. They could teach their teachers to thrive on love and admiration, rather than fear and respect, and to lay down their weapons. Students could discover community. And they could learn to dance by dancing on the IBM cards. They could make coloring books out of the catalogs and they could put the grading system in a museum.
The words "misplaced idealism" spring to mind. So do the words "Drugs are bad".