My personal experience of comprehensive education is similar to others - taught not quite to the LCD. We had kids at GCSE age who could barely read and write, who'd been left behind long ago, along with kids who didn't need to do any work to pass with good grades. Both ends of the spectrum were being failed.
I'm currently at a good uni (having done an undergrad at a rather less good uni) and the most startling thing to me is how different the intake is. At my old Uni, I knew of one person who went to private school, with almost all my peers being ex comp students. At my current Uni, it's rare to meet someone who didn't go to private or grammar school.
It's pretty damn clear to me that there's an educational apartheid in this country based solely on whether or not you can afford private education or a house in a grammar catchment. If you can't, then tough luck. The only way I can see out of this is to have more grammar schools, or something very similar, because personal experience tells me that comps don't work.
