I would check out the book "Free to Learn" by Peter Gray - he goes into why "unschooling" or democratic schooling can be effective. It really changed my outlook on education. I had previously read "A Mathemetician's Lament"[0], an essay by Paul Lockhart that made me start to question the value of regular schooling.

https://www.maa.org/external_archive/devlin/LockhartsLament....