Homeschool kids can learn in 30/min per day what public school kids take all day to learn. Then they have more time to play or develop healthy interests.
Yes, the lack "kid-tracking" creates more room for abuse and brainwashing. That problem can be answered in ways that don't require kids to sit in a windowless room for 6 hours a day.
School is supposed to serve our kids, not act as an elaborate hazing ritual.
When I met an old high school classmate who is a public school teacher in the district we both live in (300 miles away from where we grew up), she also said something similar.
This is especially true in large public schools that have to be "stack ranked" using NCLB-mandated test scores. This zapped any residual ability for them to do anything beyond the bare minimum because that would eat into time that could be used to review the tested material. Your 12th grader in "honors" classes will be given remedial lessons on how to use a Dictionary instead of reading Chaucer.