'Rebellion' in teenagers is of course well known about, but there is a difference between the person who skips a class because it is too difficult, dragging others down with them, and the pupil who wears her skirt shorter than the regulation length, or wears his tie at half mast to rebel against uniform regulations.

The majority of what I have learnt has already been useful to me, from English to mathematics, by way of religious studies and history.  But then I clearly live in a very different world to you.

The fatal flaw in the Marxist viewpoint you espouse is that everyone is equal.  That may be your view, but arguably the world is not as nice a place as socialists imagine it is.  People are not equal in the slightest, and to equate people from different cultures and even different genders is utterly ridiculous.  What the tripartite system excelled at was not to produce a society of equally educated people, but to give everyone equality of opportunity.

The statement that the middle classes are at an advantage anyway does not contradict my earlier statement.  It is a vicious circle - the middle classes have a better work ethic, so work harder, so acheive more, so have the resources to give their children better opportunities, the children thus have more incentive to work harder, giving them a better work ethic, and so on.