This only works if you either have very intrinsically motivated students or you verify that really everyone has actually read the assigned materials before class. Otherwise, some people will turn up unprepared, you will have to explain stuff they should have gotten from the reading assignment, other students will be annoyed, students will stop preparing for class, vicious cycle.

And then you fail them. I suspect an institute genuinely empowered to do so, where the expectations were declared up front and followed through on consistently, would fare well, after the dust settled.

I've been in uni classes which used this concept (about 10 years ago though). It also requires that content is given in the right size and complexity each week, otherwise there will also be people coming to class who did do their homework but didn't understand it properly and just like the people who didn't read it need full explanations.

I also felt having multiple explanations (in a regular class where you could also read the book in advance) from regular lecturers helped me in gaining understanding because having something explained in multiple ways made sure there would be at least one way, or a combination, which made it 'click'.

I always liked the regular lectures where you would be required to do some pre class reading and a smaller set of exercises the most, as you would be engaged in the class itself and would be getting repetition with different explanations.