What I have learned is that determining a child's learning style is more important than determining their intelligence level. My middle child is homeschooled right now because he learns better independently and when he can set his own pace, not because he is so gosh darn smart. There are many much smarter children in school settings doing fine. My youngest child thrives on competition with classmates and would, I expect, do very poorly at home if he had noone to pace himself against.
I concur! That's why when people ask me why I'm HSing, I say "His learning style was very different from PSs." Part of that learning style is a function of his intelligence but only a small part...as you say, many many wayyyy smarter kids function just fine in a PS. Also, even saying that has it's caveats b/c there are HUGE differences amongst schools. There are many schools out there where my DS would have been just fine and thrived...just not in our school.
