I'm surprised no one has mentioned Bryan Caplan's The Case Against Education yet, which basically argues for a revolution in the other direction - get rid of almost all schooling because almost none of it passes a sane cost benefit analysis. It's very well researched, and the author has a long track record of being happy when he moves people even marginally towards his views.

The praise here for Direct Instruction is akin in many ways to a lot of the research Caplan draws on, especially his findings that generally, most work related knowledge is built at work, by actually performing the job.

https://www.amazon.com/Case-against-Education-System-Waste/d...

While not directly related, Bryan Caplan of George Mason University argues that pushing everyone to college doesn't make sense and most of what's learned in school is a waste of time from the job market perspective. The degree is about signaling how competent someone is instead of the useful skills and knowledge obtained via education.

The link to the podcast from 2014 better represents this nuanced argument.

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/04/bryan_caplan_on.htm...

His book on the topic will be released in January 2018 https://www.amazon.com/Case-against-Education-System-Waste/d...