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I have seen two homeschool families "fail", int their own eyes. Both of them started out strong, but lost their will in life's struggles. After a year or two of almost doing NO schooling for their children, both families gave up and had their children tested to be placed in public school.

The results were astounding. All four children from these two families tested YEARS above their peers in reading, language arts and math. One young man (11 years old) tested highschool senior level in math and second year college in reading and language arts. The lowest tested child (a girl) only tested a year above her expected grade level. (The other two children tested two and four years ahead of their peers.) It's almost like these children came out ahead just by the fact that they were removed from the system. I hate to say it, but after witnessing these two examples I feel that the public school system actually retards the learning process. From what I've seen, children would be better off being raised in the home (with mom home full-time) while being given a minimal education (reading, writing and math) than cooped up in a school house.

"I hate to say it, but after witnessing these two examples I feel that the public school system actually retards the learning process."

Utterly common knowledge. That is what Mencken was talking about in the posted piece. The schools in his day were better than in ours in the sense that education at least got lip service, but not different in kind.

I wrack my brain trying to find an historical example of a public school, that is, a school affiliated with the government, that has produced educated men. Can't think of any. (Many educated men have attended public schools at various times, but in reality were mostly self taught.) The most effective system seems to be schools run and taught by one person, with no employees, just the individual teacher.

Probably the best book about education written by an American is "The Education of Henry Adams", if anyone is curious. Cheap at Amazon.

after witnessing these two examples I feel that the public school system actually retards the learning process.

That's what schools were originally designed to do, retard learning. Read "The Underground History of American Education" which I link in above post, if you can stand it.

The Seven Lesson Schoolteacher may also resonate with you.