This is school? Yes, this is school:

The three R's are of no interest to anyone here. Fairhaven, modeled after a system called the Sudbury Valley School, is a school, yes. But not as you might know it.

It is everything the ubiquitous "Leave No Child Behind" model of school, with its standardized testing and formulaic demands, is not.

This is a school with no set hours, no required classes, no grades, no parent-teacher meetings, and no rules except for the ones the people here make up and vote on themselves. It's a school where youngsters have a say on everything - from whether sipping soda should be allowed in the sound-proofed music room to which staff should be fired at the end of the year.

My initial view is that some of the critics are right; is sculpting Play-Doh for the whole school year a valid educational exercise? But why can't the best methods of this system be implemented into a public setting?