I agree it is much easier to go there, but is it really much easier to get a degree?

For example, University. Yes, many come out able to go to University. That’s because it’s much easier to go there now than it was (say) 20 years ago, and University education too is dumbed down.

The armed forces are a lot more picky than you think.

Yes. Education spending has been increased massively in the last ten years. While a lot of the money has made no difference, it takes an advanced condition of paranoia to believe it was meant to make no difference.

Could we produce a menial workforce any more cheaply? Consider that we could not consciously have a two-tiered system in the current political climate.

You appear to have missed this one:
Finally, were the abuses in Abu Ghraib caused by dispositional factors (bad apples doing bad things) or by situational factors (a ‘bad barrel’ causing otherwise admirable soldiers to torture ‘unlawful combatants’ according to their orders and training)?

No.

Strangely enough a student’s misbehaviour is down to the student. (The clue was in the word “student’s”.)

We are currently producing plenty of students who are unqualified to join the army. More generally, the idea that it is the secret purpose of the education system to produce uneducated people makes no sense at all. We could produce uneducated people far more cheaply.

“Don’t we need an underclass?”

No. An underclass, almost by definition, is a drain on resources.

The daily (and Sunday) papers say this all the time. Also, is there really a crisis? Yes, some leave education woefully uneducated - but plenty come out able to get a job or go to University.

One could argue that our school system completes it purposes exactly - by producing dropouts who can join the army, bolster the staff of fast food restaurants, clean our floors etc. Don’t we need an underclass? (For more on this, read John Taylor Gatto).

Is it at all possible that a students’ misbehaviour could be down to unfair punishments from the teacher, or unfair discipline from the system?
If it is possible, would you still blame the student anyway? (You have said before that you must presume that the teacher is always correct when a teacher and student disagree).

Finally, were the abuses in Abu Ghraib caused by dispositional factors (bad apples doing bad things) or by situational factors (a ‘bad barrel’ causing otherwise admirable soldiers to torture ‘unlawful combatants’ according to their orders and training)?