Personally I think there are merits in both home/self-schooling as well as formal education. I've self-taught myself a lot of things, in fact I have no formal education at all in my current profession, and I hold a hold a fairly high level position in my skilled-trade, employed by a higher education institution. I do also hold a degree outside of my profession, and have learned many valuable things through formal education. The one thing that I have realized is that learning is much more robust when people want to learn, rather than when they are forced to learn in order to pass a class to acquire credits. I've taught myself a lot about horticulture, which they haven't taught in any of my College Horticulture classes, and I've also learned many things in class that I likely wouldn't learn on my own. The kids that I know who are home schooled are very bright and generally independent thinkers who haven't been demoralized by the indoctrination system we know as "school". They seem to follow their passions and thereby achieve greatness in the paths they choose to follow. The idea that home schooled kids are somehow less smart is just ridiculous.
