Sure, and I'd love to pay teachers better too! But why does what I'm envisioning even necessitate an increased number of teachers? The teachers should tend toward being generalists, and part of the school's hiring process would be to attain a mixture of teachers whose skills cover the greatest breadth of subjects possible, but otherwise I don't see any major obstacles to implementing this sort of system. It would be simpler than the convoluted mess that exists now.
I don't think the parent was meaning you need more teachers. I think they were saying you need really strong teachers across the board to make this model work well. You need teachers who know their subject areas really well, and also how their subject areas fit in with other subject areas. You need teachers who understand people and communication really well. You need teachers who can make sure their subject area is not being lost or minimized in a context.
There are good models for this kind of education, and they require more of the adults involved in the process.
I agree completely. I did reread GP's post later and notice he probably didn't imply what I thought he did.
There are few things more vital than education, and that will pay back to society at a higher rate, so by all means spend a ton on teachers and schools (there's a pretty obvious candidate for reallocation of funds in US discretionary spending).
But, I think the approach to education that I glossed over earlier affords its own distinct cost-cutting opportunities, for instance the textbook mafias being rendered obsolete by digitized, open-source equivalents. And teachers will have some of their time freed up too by letting problem kids like me find my own educational pursuits, because I did that naturally as a kid. I also intensely hated sitting in desk 7 hours a day, frequently reprimanded for caving to my compulsion to talk to all the other kids around me. And then there are the many American kids with serious problems at home, who would've benefited moreso from just talking more casually with a teacher and watching Youtube videos all day, rather than pushing them into a classroom. Watch behavioral problems in general improve if you have kids exercising and socializing more, freeing up more time for teachers to work in small groups or individually. And you really don't need experts for anything below 10-12 year old kids.
