I agree -- competition is built into the system, and that encourages students to think of their classmates as adversaries instead of neighbors or partners. Some people pretend that the competition is fair and that the playing field is even for everyone, but we know that grades reflect the socio-economic status of a student's parents more than anything else. Grades reinforce inequality instead of providing a path for upward mobility. There has to be a better way, but I'm not sure there's a bureaucratic solution. We're homeschooling.