Your school experience mostly depends on who your peers are, not on the official policies of the school. The adults control only superficial 10 % of the situation, the rest is upon the kids, with a possible punishment afterwards, if some boundaries are visibly and publicly crossed.

People describing their school lives in modern Western countries will tell you completely different stories. From almost idyllic to hells of abuse (even sexual) and bullying that made them consider suicide before the age of twelve.

If we judge schools by the average, they are much better than the Spartan agoge, but if we judge them by the worst ones, I am not sure if it is still the case.