we should pay students more and give them more freedom to figure out what works for every child.

I’m assuming you meant teachers (?)

Anyway yeah, imo one of the biggest issues right now is that you can’t expect one person to teach well to 20+ students simultaneously. My best learning experiences in school have been with small classes, where the teacher could actually focus on people who understood less and ensure everyone got at least the very minimum required from an argument before moving to the following one.