I have no direct experience on the subject, as I was home-schooled all the way through, but this Salon article by Peter Gray makes a lot of claims that reflect my own reservations. Regular school has always sounded awful to me, and I cannot imagine how kids deal with it; I have always wondered if it is just me or if it really is that bad. The author of this article seems pretty certain that it isn’t just me:

School is a place where children are compelled to be, and where their freedom is greatly restricted — far more restricted than most adults would tolerate in their workplaces. In recent decades, we have been compelling our children to spend ever more time in this kind of setting, and there is strong evidence (summarized in my recent book) that this is causing serious psychological damage to many of them. Moreover, the more scientists have learned about how children naturally learn, the more we have come to realize that children learn most deeply and fully, and with greatest enthusiasm, in conditions that are almost opposite to those of school.