Actually, home schooling is a good example of the sorts of productivity issues addressed in that article: home schooling makes sense precisely *because* educational productivity is low and highly resistant to improvement compared to many other sorts of economic activity, that’s for example why some people home school their children for “educational” reasons, but no one makes their own flat-screen monitors.
If we knew how to radically raise classroom productivity - if we could create a classroom situation which was 10x as productive as individual instruction - there would be much less *educational* incentive to home school.
Unfortunately despite high hopes attending the introduction of various pedological and technological advances classroom productivity has proved stubbornly resistant to improvement - which is likely the proponents of various “solutions” to the problem are so dismissive of everyone else’s.
And even so, classroom “productivity” (at least in the 85% of public schools that produce reasonably good results) is higher by your own standard, 2hs/day/one student equals 40/hrs/day for a twenty student classroom, so even if we assume that home schooling is twice as effective, a classroom is still several times as “productive” as home schooling.
The actual time that I spent per child was far far **less** than 2 hours. Yet...Even with this minimal time investment on my part and that of the children, all 3 of my homeschoolers were in college by the ages of 13, 12, and 13. How's that for efficiency and use of time? Few teachers in institutional settings can beat that!
As I posted previously, homeschooled parents have told me that they spend **less** ( please note the word **LESS**) than 2 hours in formal homeschooling with an individual child. I know large families where the older children take over much of the teaching the younger. It was once common in one room schools of the past for the older children to help with the teaching of the younger.
As my children grew older I merely checked their work occasionally and helped to make sure that distractions in the home were kept to a minimum. Don't parents of academically successful institutionalized children do exactly the same?
Also...If bright children could start college at the ages of 13, 12, and 13 and finish B.S. degrees by age 18, ( as mine did) think of all the eliminated high school and middle school teacher jobs ( hours).
If any child of any age could take a GED-like exam and immediately qualify for university, college, or an apprenticeship ( with all the scholarship and perks of an ordinary student) that too would eliminate many high school and middle school teaching jobs ( hours).
Virtual schools, ( right now) allow many middle and high school students to take courses at their convenience, especially during breaks and the summer. That eliminates teachers and their teaching hours.
Finally, I personally know both institutionally schooled children and homeschoolers who have simply bought the book, taken an AP advanced placement course, and scored on the highest levels. ( Absolutely **no** teacher hours there!)
Wow! There is **PLENTY** of room in the existing collectivist school system to squeeze out many teaching jobs ( hours) and get better results as well.