`Common sense' in this case is quite misleading; indeed `[a] collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen' fits this case perfectly. For one, a quick look

`Common sense' in this case is quite misleading; indeed `[a] collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen' fits this case perfectly. For one, a quick look at Wikipedia gives list of references indicating the opposite -- homeschooled studends tend to sligtly outpeform school-schooled students [1] [2]. For another, there's been plenty of stories in press, and specifically on HN, indicating that giving students a lot of freedom in picking both subjects and methodology yields better results than highly uniform, mass schooling. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling#Homeschooling_and_college_admissions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling#Homeschooling_and... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling#Test_results http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling#Test_results