[bokonist]

Why do you think that would improve outcomes?

From my observation, if someone is smart, they can teach themselves out of a book, with a bit of guidance to keep them on the right track. If someone simply lacks the cognitive power, there is nothing a teacher can do to make them smart. The student can improve somewhat with practice and drilling, but they still plateau at a lower point than the smart student. So we need to spend enough money that their is a guide to help students get through roadblocks, but I see no evidence that we are spending too little to provide appropriate guidance. I think one hour of personal guidance for every 10 to 20 hours of self-practice is a perfectly normal ratio. That is what we do when training new engineers, or learning a musical instrument, and there really isn't much of a way to gain more benefit by increasing the quantity of guidance.

I think that teaching could be improved somewhat, at the high-end. But it could be done by reallocating existing spending, not spending more. I do think that mentorship helps a lot, but mentorship needs to come from an experienced practitioner. So what we need is a system where a programmer can work a job for a few years, then take a mentoring job for a year, then work for a few years, etc. This would require eliminating the need for education degrees, and optimizing teacher's time for personal mentorship rather than grading tests, building lesson plans, and performing classroom management. It really would be an entirely different job than what is now considered a teacher. A "teacher" now is really just a glorified day-care worker, paying them more won't help much.