I got an interesting perspective from a young teacher a few years back, I'm not sure to what extent this is backed by research and science, but she did quote va

I got an interesting perspective from a young teacher a few years back, I'm not sure to what extent this is backed by research and science, but she did quote various studies. Interesting in any case, even as a hypothesis. Anyway… she thought kids were grossly over-schooled at younger ages. Here argument was basically: (1) Kids are hitting diminishing returns on formal schooling at 2-3 hours per day. Their attention can't stretch much farther and their progress is ultimately determined by biological limits. A 4th grade reading/math level is determined more by average cognitive ability at that age than by the hours of classroom time they have put in. (2) The second point was a more intuitive one: classroom sizes, particularly in linear subjects (mostly ready, writing, math in primary school) are way to big to be effective. Putting these two together, she wanted 2-3 hours of school with smaller classes. IE, a teacher teaches 2-3 classes per day with 1/3 the students. She thought it would be more effective and leave more time for play and other things. Fleshing it out in my head, I think it would be something like 4 * 30 minute classes with short breaks between classes, which makes intuitive sense if you've interacted with kids 6-11. The elephant in that room is child care. We live in a monetary world. Education and child are services that cost money. Taking child care away has immediate opportunity costs. But, for people that can afford to lose 5 hours a day of child care, it would be interesting to experiment with this sort of thing for 6-9 year olds. There are costs to achieving 2 hours of learning in 6 hours too. Boredom, frustration, less time for play or sport or whatnot.