I talked to a really cool, smart teacher about 2 years ago and I have some murky version of an idea brewing from that chat. She thought about these problems in terms of economics, pedagogy and how it affects the classroom. I am not a teacher but I have been a student so the subject is naturally interesting to me. I also care because I think teaching is a core thing in a society. A lot of other things hang on it.
Some key things that are directly determined by the school system seem to be class size & learning pace. At the same time, children's attention spans and other complicated realities of learning and how it works in kids or not really in tune with the "industry" of teaching on a society wide scale.
Nine year olds in groups of 30 40 or even 20 are a handful when you put them together 6 to 8 hours every day and make them learn reading. Kids only have so much attention span, it varies, but 6 hours is far above the median in practice. A lot of the controversial learning related medication is used primarily to improve a child's ability to make it through a school day. Class size. School hours.
Learning pace is related to class sizes too. The reality is that the number of hours it takes to teach a 9 year old reading or multiplication varies, but it the vast majority of cases classrooms go at a pace much slower than could be achieved by a competent teacher 1-on-1. I don't know what the multiple is but I think it's reasonable to assume it's high. Call that the reference point for efficiency. That means the potential number of hours needed per child are lower, if the learning quality is higher.
Another "economic"issue other than cost and subsequent scarcity of teacher hours is parents' "babysitting" needs. Parents work. You can't work if you need to pick up an eight year old at 11:30 and an eleven year old at 12:45. I have heard interesting ideas here. All sorts of ideas that I don't really have the understanding to evaluate, but they sound interesting. If you don't need the kids to learn math for half the school hours, teachers don't need to be teachers. High schoolers can work at camps, youth clubs. They could also do it in after schools during school hours. They could spend time outside. There are a lot of options. An important note is that these hours are cheaper than classroom hours.
Anyway... technology could play an interesting role. If technology and pedagogy can figure out a formula that gives teachers a lever a lot of the economic problems become more solvable and a lot of new models are possible.
Some key things that are directly determined by the school system seem to be class size & learning pace. At the same time, children's attention spans and other complicated realities of learning and how it works in kids or not really in tune with the "industry" of teaching on a society wide scale.
Nine year olds in groups of 30 40 or even 20 are a handful when you put them together 6 to 8 hours every day and make them learn reading. Kids only have so much attention span, it varies, but 6 hours is far above the median in practice. A lot of the controversial learning related medication is used primarily to improve a child's ability to make it through a school day. Class size. School hours.
Learning pace is related to class sizes too. The reality is that the number of hours it takes to teach a 9 year old reading or multiplication varies, but it the vast majority of cases classrooms go at a pace much slower than could be achieved by a competent teacher 1-on-1. I don't know what the multiple is but I think it's reasonable to assume it's high. Call that the reference point for efficiency. That means the potential number of hours needed per child are lower, if the learning quality is higher.
Another "economic"issue other than cost and subsequent scarcity of teacher hours is parents' "babysitting" needs. Parents work. You can't work if you need to pick up an eight year old at 11:30 and an eleven year old at 12:45. I have heard interesting ideas here. All sorts of ideas that I don't really have the understanding to evaluate, but they sound interesting. If you don't need the kids to learn math for half the school hours, teachers don't need to be teachers. High schoolers can work at camps, youth clubs. They could also do it in after schools during school hours. They could spend time outside. There are a lot of options. An important note is that these hours are cheaper than classroom hours.
Anyway... technology could play an interesting role. If technology and pedagogy can figure out a formula that gives teachers a lever a lot of the economic problems become more solvable and a lot of new models are possible.