See I see the opposite approach. The virtual classrooms have led to much less work for teachers, and plenty of them have admitted they're using the virtual classrooms as an excuse to just give every student a pass so they're not even grading papers. The unions would love it because not only would it be just as easy to demand hiring more teachers since you can hire them from anywhere in the country that has decent internet coverage,
The current structure of online schools actually puts the demand for teachers at a fraction of what it is today. If you think the pay is grossly unfair now, just wait until they figure out that they need, at most, 1/4 of instructors that they currently employ.
Why? As I mentioned above, these schools resemble colleges, in that a single teacher will teach one subject, yet will be able to cover multiple grades.
The ones who would hate the idea would be the administrators who get money for having asses in seats at the physical school buildings,
These online schools are almost exclusively state funded at this point, and almost ALL of their funding comes from participation in standardized tests.
A simple measure of attendance (which is often a large factor in funds recieved) is impossible when doing online curriculum. You could have a student who finishes all the work, but has looked up all the answers. While many of these programs have dabbled with monitoring login hours of their students, they have run into an equal problem with students logging in and leaving their computer on, only to be afk or busy elsewhere on the web.
Therefore, these standardized tests (often taken at the administrative building which houses the school) are really the only way to get clear answers. I can recall a specific situation where a student with medical issues was hospitalized the week that the test needed to be taken. The student was very gifted, and within a system of maybe 150 total kids, their scores would weigh heavily in favor of the online program.
They ended up rescheduling the entire test, working around this student's schedule, basically bending over backwards for this kid. And the test wasn't even required for the grade this student was in, it just was something the school itself would benefit from, given this student's scores would be predictably among the highest in the program.
and get to process and redirect all the money that's supposed to go to maintenance and bills for keeping said buildings open. The challenge would be for the unions and administrators to get together and convince those holding the purse strings to not only keep funding the physical buildings as offices the teachers can use to host the meetings under the excuse of stable internet connection and access to teaching aids, but to increase funding because obviously they'd need a complete fiber-optic overhaul and better cameras/computers and more visual aids to engage students in a virtual environment!
Often what we see is that the online programs will rent out an office space, and it really doesnt have to be large. These offices could be just down the hall from dentist or lawyer. Can meet here for tutoring as well as take tests in this space.
Which means public school buildings themselves are unecessary. Though regarding your point about needing to grab the attention of certain students, I very very much believe that online schooling should be restricted to those above 3rd-4th grade, as you need time to develop certain social skills and exposure to a set schedule. By that grade you have been in the system for half a decade at least. You can also take this period to identify the candidates who would benefit most from traditional in person schooling, and conversely those who are ahead of ththe curve. It can be a choice that parents and teachers make, as they know the child and their home situation best.
Which will never happen under the current administration, which is telling them "Use it or lose it." That's why they're desperately going to hold out hoping Trump loses in November... a Dem administration would let them run wild again and get away with all that shit on the principle of "undoing the damage wrought by Trump and DeVos".
I expect businesses and schools to form actual contingency plans, were such an outbreak to appear again.
Businesses obviously will try to maintain online productivity because they do not want to lose too much money.
I expect a great deal of non-physical labor jobs will have far more options for working at home, even during times where there is no outbreak. It makes the transition more seamless, as well as allowing an effective "quarantine" system to develop, where these physical laborers are still required to go to work, but have a more controlled environment which can limit the spread of any virus.
Because much of the schooling infrastructure for these online courses is already in place, I don't necessarily see politicians dragging their feet about this. Youre right about DeVos though, as I do not expect such changes to be made on a federal level. This is more local territory, as education should be.
The people who run this world and control the politicians are most concerned with money. And online schooling can save big bucks, not only with less demand for resources and instructors, but it also moves a lot of educational resources online - which is quite frankly an area that a lot of boomer aged school administrators are not well versed in. By switching the entire infrastructure to online, you tell these people that they either need to catch up with technology, or hire someone who actually understands running a website.
My point is that money talks, and once one state dips their toe in the water, the other will follow. Kind of like Colorado and weed. Everyone's seeingthe cash it is bringing in, and it's like a golden answer to budgetary problems.
As we move toward a world with more automation, and therefore expectation of advancement, I think this is one of those things that will be seen as just the normal progression of society.
