an eleven year old from hell

My 11 year old son was born as obstinate as they come. He could give a mule a run for it's money. Everytime he has to do anything from getting out of bed to clearing off his dish from the table, it becomes a contest of wills. We just had a knock down drag out fight about his "WEEKLY" english essay. He wrote the essay with no problem. I read it and it was just one long run on sentence with bad grammer and even worse english. (I don't know what they teach kids in school today!) I told him that there were changes that needed to be made to it and it led to an hour long, "I don't care about this" and "You can't make me do this" and " I hate this!"

I was told to correct his homework by the teachers, whose exact words to us parents were "I don't know how you parents let some of these kids bring in homework that is not done correctly!" Oh and by the way this is 15% of your child's grade. SO as a concerned parent I have to look at his homework, first to make sure he does it and second to make sure it is marginally acceptable at least.

I want to know what am I supposed to do about this. My 14 year old moves at the pace of molasses but at least he does what he's supposed to do by way of school work. The 11 year old, God only knows what goes on in his mind. If you told him something was black, he would insist despite all evidence to the contrary that it was white and fight you tooth and nail physically to prove his point. My point is that I am tired of this. I already went to school. I don't need to do 7th grade all over again. He just won't take responsibility for himself and as a responsible parent I can't let him fail. If failure had only minor consequences, ie he'd get a bad grade and learn from his mistakes okay. BUT he is so stubborn that it may lead to a lifetime of failure just because he doesn't want to conform in any way shape or form. I hope that I am overreacting because it is so depressing.