Maybe Steve imagined something like the European system. You go to school until 5/6pm but you do your whole homework in school and the afternoon is for that and other activities to broaden the mind.
Otherwise, that's a stupid idea. In Germany teachers are civil servants so they can't build unions, they can't get fired too, but they can pushed off their position when they are bad teachers.
"the European system"? The systems in individual European countries are about as different from each other as any of them are different from the US system.
One attempt to somewhat align the different European systems for higher education was the ECTS [1], but even that isn't quite perfect..
Otherwise, that's a stupid idea. In Germany teachers are civil servants so they can't build unions, they can't get fired too, but they can pushed off their position when they are bad teachers.