Millions of American parents are now… schooling their offspring at home, and new computer software is making quality home education easier to accomplish. Recent studies have shown that home-schooled students are superior to schooled students both academically and socially…

It shouldn't surprise you that home-schooled students do so well. In school all students are expected, cookie-cutter style, to learn the same way and at the same pace; at home, learning is individualized and self-paced, as all learning should be.

–Teen 2.0: Saving Our Children and Families From the Torment of Adolescense, Robert Epstein, Ph. D.

Plenty of young people become well educated by their parents and through their own efforts despite going to public school.

But you can make the results even more dramatic by removing your children from these harmful institutions. Tomorrow we will dive into creative ways to homeschool or "unschool" if you think the logistics are impossible for your situation.

Today, let's just focus on why children and teens need to be rescued from public schools.

1. Freedom Makes People Smarter

A study on rats found that when they were given "enriched" environments to explore, their brains physically grew, and the rats displayed better problem-solving skills.

They didn't have to be forced to interact with their environment. They were naturally curious.

It doesn't make sense to push your children towards particular things that you want them to learn, or that public schools say they should learn.

Instead of signing them up for piano lessons, for example, put a piano in their environment. If they express interest, offer to get them more help and instruction.

The Sudbury Valley School in Framingham Massachusetts has a 50-year history of teaching students in this way.

They have a beautiful, sprawling campus, with a pond, woods, and fields. They have books to read, and games to play, sports equipment, kitchens for cooking, and labs for experiments. They have teachers available so that when the kids do want help learning or creating, they get it.

But students plan their own days, they are not forced to study anything in particular.

And with such a history, the school has amassed piles of anecdotal evidence on the results. It suggests simply giving children the freedom to pursue their own intellectual activities makes them more self-assured, more successful, and happier in childhood, and later in life.