I have been talking to metro Atlanta teens at every opportunity and I am hearing the same stories about their high schools. Classes are big. Teachers can’t teach because of unruly students.

Teachers tell me that their administrators are pushing them to teach to higher standards and assign more meaningful and complex work, including more writing in every class.

Teachers are supposed to go deep despite classes that are larger than last year in many metro Atlanta schools as a result of budget cuts, which will likely continue.

One of my twins -- whose freshman high school classess are all 30-plus kids --  told me this week,  “If the teacher would stop focusing on the kids who were being disruptive and give us our work, high school would be so much better.”

My older son had 23 kids in most of his high school classes five years ago. His 14-year-old siblings have an additional 10 students in most classes. One metro teen told me this weekend that he had 35 students in his math class, five of whom had no desks for a week.

Here is how one teacher roughly broke down his 33-student class for me: Sixteen kids on target, seven behind but attentive, five well ahead of their peers. And five who don’t try at all and don't care at all. Those last five take 25 percent of his time.

And they need that time, he says. He's not giving up on them, but his efforts on their behalf steal time away from other kids, including the top students.

We keep hearing about innovations in online learning. Why can't high schools pull out the five kids who are well ahead and some of those who are on target and let them progress on their own track?

Why don’t we embrace the Oxford University tutorial model where bright students read and research on their own and then meet with their teachers one-on-one or in small groups for an intense session where they must defend, analyze, and critique?

The flipped classroom model – where students watch teacher lectures online on their own and come to class for discussion and debate – ought to be utilized to deal with crowded classes and time lost to disruptive students. Give kids who want to learn the option to do so in productive settings and free up teachers to bring up the students who are behind or at risk for dropping out.  

Teachers tell me they could better deal with problem students if they had fewer kids in their classes.

Some parents offer reassurances that AP classes will offer relief from the large “general population” classes. 

But rather than an escape hatch for a few students, why don't we create more options for all kids?

Why can’t we think creatively and solve this?