Are smaller classes even necessary? I've often wondered if having two teachers in a single classroom would help. It would certainly help with ability groupings, as well as with the overall administrative headaches. It may also help to tackle this culture of, erm, independence (i.e. lack of collaboration) in the school as a whole since teachers are being forced to work with at least one colleague anyhow.

It would also help new teachers get into the field. I think that a lot of teachers teach as they were taught simply because they are given a year of training then thrust into a classroom to deal with things alone. Professional development is usually a day or two long, which doesn't leave time for things to sink in (especially when you're returning to the classroom the next day). On top of that, it helps if you have a set of lesson plans that you can modify with time. Doing everything at once is nuts. It also helps if you taught from those lesson plans before, because it takes time to learn a programme even if it is handed to you on a silver platter.

Anyhow, the problems with eduction seem to range from end to end: with parents on one end and governments on the other. (Yes, that includes teachers and students as well.) Having too many interests also seems to make the whole system too rigid. It's far to easy to stay with the status quo and tweak the status quo, even when everyone hates it, because noone will agree on how to make more significant changes.