I m sorry to hear about the experiences of your wife - i feel that whoever reassigned her to juvie might've even done it with the best of intentions, but is incompetent and made the worst possible decision.

The open courses may lead to a more distributed education paradigm, and i think that ways lies the future. However, the process of ranking is such a subjective method, that i don't believe there will ever be a way to do so and not have it tampered with either via politics or personal gain.