John Holt was one of America's most perceptive teachers and authors on the subject of school and education.  The more he observed children in school, the more he believed that school was actually a hindrance to education.  He wrote his findings in two excellent books, entitled 'How Children Fail' and 'How Children Learn'.  He questioned how an entire system could 'turn a torrent into a trickle' when it came to human potential.
Eventually, he became an advocate for home-schooling, a movement that now includes millions of children in the USA and thousands in the UK.  The issue of home-schooling is a hot one.  Its critics voice two main objections:
 1. It can create unsociable young people.
 2.  It can be used as a means of indoctrinating a child into a political or religious creed.


Of the few cases I have personally known, the children did not become unsociable and all had a circle of friends, most of whom were deeply envious of the home-schooler.
The second objection is a serious one.  I would guess that in some cases, home-inculcation occurs.  But if parents are hell-bent on indoctrinating their child, then they will do so, irrespective of school.
Millions of home-schooled children have done very well, in exams and in life.

I would like to end by quoting a review of Holt's 'How Children Learn'.  It puts into words, better than I could, John Holt's view of 'education':
"Left to themselves, young children are capable of grasping new ideas faster than most adults give them credit for.  But they have their own ways of understanding, of working things out; and in most cases this fresh, natural style of thinking is destroyed when the child goes to school and encounters formal methods of learning".