A lot of people here talk about homeschooling/normal schooling as a binary choice with stark trade offs. But if anyone has read the recent Reinventing Organizations book then the example of Berlin school ESBZ[1] imediately comes to mind - self managed school where the kids decide their lessons, help each other and solve problems with help and advice from the parents, teachers and children from higher grades - they are still graded normally at the end of the year so they get the basic skills but they also get so so much more - problem solving, autonomy and authority, etc. I really don't get why we don't try to get all of our schools to work like that. [1]http://developyourchild.co.uk/blog/teal-school/