Not according to a growing group of teens who choose to educate themselves outside the school system. They call themselves unschoolers, deschoolers and dropouts, among other things. And for different reasons, they drop out of school, despite statistics that suggest that dropping out of school can lead to a financially hard life. Compared to high school graduates, dropouts are likely to earn less money, collect unemployment, and receive public assistance and be single parents, according to a 1999 report by the U.S. Department of Education s National Center for Education Statistics. First let's clear up a few things there's an important distinction between education and schooling.
Education is the active development of knowledge and lasts a lifetime.
Schooling is merely the act of going to school. Schooling can be passive. You sit and receive whatever lecture is on the teacher's syllabus, regardless of what you're interested in. Attending formal classes is no guarantee that you're learning, just as dropping out doesn t keep you from getting an education. Also, unschooling is not homeschooling, where your parents set up a school system at home.