My best experience for book reports was by oral exam in high school with a class of about 30.

Everyone has independent work and one by one you are called to the teacher's desk. He would take your book, open it up to a "random" spot and read a couple of sentences and then ask about what is going on in that scene. Hard to bull shit.

This could be modified to be like parent:teacher conferences where appointment slots exist while everyone else is doing something else (lunch, another class, maybe scheduled after hours)

Bring back smaller classroom sizes.

Bring back functional school funding models.

Bring back a populace proud to pay for their priorities with taxes

But the issue is not there is not enough money in the budget, it's just not a priority. Old people are prioritized, not young future.

Double education budget.

Most western countries I follow are cutting on public education and teachers are miserable. It doesn't sound promising to be honest.

Doesn't France still do oral exams?

They do, but teachers are on the street every year as their conditions degrade. It might not last for long.

As does Denmark.