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Atrocious garbage of an article. Public school is bad NOT BECAUSE it is public, and even NOT BECAUSE, or HOW, it is organized. The root of the trouble is that like a platoon marching at the speed of its slowest soldier, the slowest and dullest pupils [unless separated into a different education stream], slow everyone else down.
Here the homeschooling enjoys one very important privilege - a class of one student, i.e. perfectly homogeneous and segregated by ability student body. From the experience of [foreign] - admittedly elitist - schools which to a significant extent carried out the same segregation by ability, one could say that it is absolutely possible to achieve stunning results in a public school setting as well, since in it is possible to apply more resources than would be available to a single homeschooling family. Once upon a time and in a different realm I visited such a school, organized by university professors for their offspring. They had to open it to outsiders as a public school - and did so, as a school for the gifted on the basis of competitive admission by IQ.
If memory serves, I saw a class of maybe 35 students, age about 12-13, with minimal IQ of 140. Without pencil or paper, just in their heads, these kids were doing visualization exercises with things like 5- dimensional hypercube in its intersection with something else equally exotic. From what I've heard, from that class by now one could find maybe a dozen professors in major European universities, and a couple teaching in the Ivy league here.
Show me any home- or private- schooling advocate who would not be proud of such results. Thus it is not the organization [schedules, classes with breaks etc], nor per se the size of the class, but the quality of the student body. And one more point: when everyone around has IQ>140, it is almost impossible to coast against too strong a background. Thus competitive motivation.

The root of the trouble is that like a platoon marching at the speed of its slowest soldier, the slowest and dullest pupils [unless separated into a different education stream], slow everyone else down.

Some districts do separate the better students and place them in better schools. The problem is, with a school system based on the socialist model, other students with potential do become lost, stuck behind in the worse schools, as sometimes admission into the better schools comes down to pulling strings and the luck of the draw.

Privatizing education would put it all back into the hands of the parents. Then, if private companies wanted to recruit promising young students to work for them, they could offer scholarships or run their own schools to educate them. Competition would offer so many more options.

From what I've heard, from that class by now one could find maybe a dozen professors in major European universities, and a couple teaching in the Ivy league here.

Great. They're probably the ones spouting all the Leftist ideas. ;-)

The root of the trouble is that like a platoon marching at the speed of its slowest soldier,

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I dated a man who was a graduate of the Stuyvesant school in N.Y. It was a dreadful experience for him.

He was disgusted to death with the eternal competition and intensive speed with which new work was introduced. Along with this was the adulation he received from his parents, relatives, family friends, and neighbors that added to the pressure of expectations. Hey! He had a high IQ, and society demanded "production" from this IQ.

The amount on time required for school work consumed his life, and left no time for personal creativity. He was kid on a 4 year treadmill, and felt like a gerbil on an forced exercise wheel.

So...what happened when he finally was accepted to Case Western? Answer: He chose the easiest possible major. Philosophy. He then spent as much time in the computer labs working on and finishing other students computer projects. ( This was the early 70s when large stacks of cards were the norm.)

In his adult life he made a very successful career in computer programing, and ,,,,guess what? ,,,,he was nearly entirely self-taught in this field. ( So much for all that formal education!)

I did not marry this guy, because he bragged about how he deliberately set out to do as little as possible in college. I didn't want any future children of mind taught this.

So...what did my actual children do?

They were homeschooled. They entered college, by their own choice, at the ages of 13, 12, and 13. They took courses by their own volition. All finished their college generals and Calculus III by the age of 15.

The two younger were graduates of university with B.S. degrees in math at the age of 18. One of these recently finished a masters in math at the age of 20.

The oldest of the 3 is a highly accomplished athlete, and plans to make a career in coaching. He is studying business and accounting. Along with all of his training, worldwide travel, and a 2 year church mission in the Baltics ( returning home fluent in Russian), he will graduate from college at the age of his contemporaries.

All children play an instrument, are accomplished ballroom dancers, sing in their church and school choirs, have many good and wholesome friends, and are volunteers for their church.

This is the difference between hot-house raising of high IQ children, such as my old dating companion, and the more natural environment of the home that my children enjoyed.

In my opinion, homeschooling is the most natural and healthy environment to raise children to a educationally and emotionally secure adulthood. Yes, some children will need institutionalization. This is a shame. We need orphanages too, but no one is suggesting that it is the best way to raise a child.

Once upon a time and in a different realm I visited such a school, organized by university professors for their offspring.

Every wonder why you had to frame this as a fairy tale? It's real hard to keep a gifted/talented program going in the public schools. It happens in University towns, or in places where most of the parents are engineers (we have large AT&T, J&J and other research sites close). It happens when parents are smart enough and rich enough to demand something better. Even then, its a continual political fight to keep these programs going.