Pardon my ignorance...but could you say a bit more about how the various
schedules you're considering provide time for teachers to share and
collaborate on preparation?
One finding of the major cross-cultural studies(*) is that teachers in
higher-performing countries are given substantially more hours at school
for collaboration and preparation. Japanese teachers, for example,
spend only about 60% of school time in charge of a classroom!
The daily schedule is of course only one component of the support that
these educational systems provide to their teachers for collaboration
and professional development. Another is facilities: every teacher has
a desk in a common office space where teachers prepare, hold conferences
with students, collaborate with other teachers, etc.
In this country, "teacher professional development" appears to be
typically viewed as an expensive add-on, entirely separate from the
day-to-day operation of the school. This is eerily remiscent of how
American companies used to think of "quality" as a luxury they couldn't
afford to add into their products. (It's true, of course, that both the
schedule and facilities decisions cited above will increase class
sizes. But low student/teacher ratio is not by itself a predictor of
success, as you found with the tutorials.)
*References:
1. TIMSS (Third Intl. Math and Science Study), http://nces.ed.gov/timss/
[see especially http://nces.ed.gov/timss/97198-7.html].
2. The Learning Gap, H. Stevenson and J. Stigler (Touchstone 1992).
PB