Can you provide links to this big debate?  I've never heard of this before.  Sounds too much like post-rationalizing vague general new age woo to disguise one's discomfort with the contemporary open classroom / spaces you see in affluent suburbs.

I hear teachers talking about it every year, there is not an official public debate, but an architect went to an interview on tv talking about it, how schools are like prisons and are not adapted for kids... then we have visited a new school built recently and in every classroom there is a square isolated room for students who have either behavioral issues OR ADHD and need more concentration, this room has glasses to watch the rest of the class so teachers can walk between the classroom and the little isolated room without loosing sight.. I will try to find articles!

Ah yes, I remember that big debate, huge debate actually, so huge and big it was unable to grasp...not even with the enormous hands of a guy like Trump, that's how big.

Anywho, everyone knows you fight ADHD with drugs, lots of drugs, and alcohol, yes alcohol too, not with architecture.

Here is one translated from google translate because it is a french article : 

1.Developed in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MESS), with financial support of $ 2.54 million, and with partners and stakeholders, Schola.ca will enable its users to target the architectural and design interventions most likely to support educational success and contribute to the well-being of all, in a perspective of sustainable development.

2."Our researchers in architecture, education and design will provide a digital, reliable toolbox that addresses the major renovation needs of schools. This platform will be essential to help educational decision makers design bright, user-friendly and modern learning spaces for new generations, "said Sophie D'Amours, President of Laval University. "In addition to all the people who work with students on a daily basis, educational success is achieved through schools offering an optimal environment and quality living environments. Since many schools were built decades ago, the planning of renovation or construction work must be accompanied by the desire to beautify the area and make it more welcoming and better suited to the realities of the 21st century. I am convinced that the partnership with Laval University and the School of Architecture will promote the educational success of young people. Sébastien Proulx, Minister of Education, Recreation and Sports and Minister responsible for the Capitale-Nationale region.

3.Contemporary architecture suffers from a "huge lack of communication" and without an architectural culture, students can spontaneously associate the creative concrete chosen for their school to the prison world (Laurent, 2006).

4.after parents and teachers, architecture is the third teacher. It influences the student as well as the teacher and its effects must be thought upstream to make the greatest number of students succeed. This Third Teacher approach is the basis of many current initiatives in both the overall design of the building and the elements of interior architecture (Dahlinger, 2008). School architecture also contributes to the school effect: with similar students, some schools are more conducive to academic success. Space is then part of the elements that contribute to the success of as many students as possible, as well as management, organization and human relations. To take meaning, the transmission of knowledge and socialization of students go hand in hand. All that concerns the reception, the circulation, the communication, the lodging or the restoration is today to be considered in a school building (Mazalto et al., 2008).

5. American architects and educators wonder about the durability of this space, even if most American schools are still a series of cubes connected by corridors, on the model of the factory (or workshop of Ford factories, Nair & Fielding 2005). The end of standardized models also concerns the classroom (Pourchet, 2005): it is now a unit of life that must be able to evolve according to pedagogical practices. At the same time, the work of teachers is changing too. They must have access to individual or collective workspaces.