Do we really need schools?

There is a great article on education on Robin Goods website by John Taylor Gatto posing the question "Education: Do We Really Need Schools Or Do We Need To Better Understand What Education Should Really Be?"

In the article, the author quotes from H. L. Mencken, who wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that

"... the aim of public education is not to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The aim is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.

That is its aim in the United States and that is its aim everywhere else"

Whether this is the intent or not I often feel it is the result of education world-wide!