Sudburykid

There are a few main benefits, in my opinion. The first one I would mention is one that I think a lot of people disregard (and probably will disregard, even after me writing this), which is that it's simply a lot more pleasant for the students. Traditional schools force students to learn subjects they're uninterested in, some of which may have no use to them in their adult life, as well as the amount of homework, which can interfere with other outside of school activities.

Secondly, it benefits people who are very passionate about a specific subject, and allows them to spend as much time as they want truly mastering it. In a traditional school, if you want to learn Calculus at age 10, that's not going to be available. At a Sudbury school, you can invest as much time as you want into learning math, or art, or programming.

Thirdly, I think the social scene, at least at my school, is vastly superior to traditional schools. The age mixing is very beneficial to students, both younger and older, in terms of what they can learn from one another. Bullying is very rare, and when it does occur, it is handled by a system called Judicial Committee, which is made up of several students who hear the case and decide which parties are guilty, and what sentence they should receive. Plus there's just a lot more time for hanging out with your friends, instead of just a couple hours a day.

I've found that when people are left to direct their own learning, they do learn a variety of subjects. They just happen to be the variety they're personally interested in. And there are people (whether they be students or staff) around who will suggest things that someone may not have thought they'd be interested in, so it's not like that is totally lost either.

In the state of Washington, there aren't actually any requirements for specific things that students have to learn. If I remember correctly, the school does have to "offer" a certain group of subjects, which our school does. Usually nobody is taking advantage of those things, which is perfectly legal. We are required to have an accredited teacher on staff, as well as to have a certain amount of school days each year. We are fully accredited by the state of Washington, and you receive a normal high school diploma for graduating.

I wouldn't go so far as to say the setup works well for everyone. I do think it works very well for more students than most people would expect. It's certainly true that people who are of a higher ability or intelligence level will devote themselves more fully to what people might see as traditional learning, but that doesn't mean what the other students are doing isn't valuable.

Also, a lot of students that "need more help" in a traditional school turn out to not need as much help in a Sudbury school. I've seen a lot of kids really come into their own and start directing their own learning after coming to school. Recently, there was a student who enrolled at school, and for the first 2 months or so, he didn't talk to anyone. He would sit on a couch with his laptop, or a book, or take a nap on it, and would only talk to someone if you came over to check on how he was doing, to which he would only reply with one or two words. After a couple of months, he's a lot more interactive and vocal, and he's starting to really take an interest in the school. Sometimes it just takes time for people to get used to being responsible for themselves.

It would be pretty hard to organize a bunch of four and five-year olds to do anything. The expression should really be "Like herding toddlers".

That... isn't an answer to how many finished college. That's an answer about how many started it, from 7 years ago when we had 5 graduates. Out of those 5, the three who went to college finished it, one of the others who was working went to college and finished it. The other two I haven't kept in touch with.

Like I said, I'm afraid I don't have those statistics for you.