And, I would think that for most school work, having a computer that the kids can't break would be an admin's dream.
So, the ChromeOS notebook should work as good as anything for that job.
About 50% of my administrative tasks (documentation and architecture) are entirely offline tasks?
My kids can't break their windows machine, because I know what I'm doing and have set up a strong security policy.
In my experience, I find that regardless of policy, windows computers are more likely to break down at one point or another. Curious though, what do you do different to mitigate that inevitability?
1. Secure by default. The default windows configuration is not secure by default - it's a compromise that is used to make it usable for people. You can (with Group Policy) lock the machine down heavily then allow things as they are required. I do this.
2. Good hardware. They have a Dell Precision T3500 rather than some shitty disposable piece of crap. I expect this will last around 8-10 years.
Windows is perfectly fine if you understand it. We have 377 Windows machines and 205 Linux machines in total. Reliability statistics are approximately the same. The only issues we get is with hardware packing in occasionally (usually the HP mid-range stuff and their laptops).
For offline tasks, use offline apps, like Google Docs.
I wait until the end of my commute, and then use the network there. All places I work form have internet access.
As others have mentioned: -I can ssh into any linux box I need.
As others haven't mentioned: -I can RDP via chrome app to any Windows server I need (Or more commonly I RDP to a "command" server and do all my other work from there.) This gives the added benefit of keeping my device outside the general workflow of things. I still have a windows laptop loaded with the same image as the average user, but there's really only for dogfooding.
We are a Google Apps heavy shop - so there's that.
I'm missing the logical connection you make between what my school district should and shouldn't pay for... Should your employers not buy Macbooks?
If it is a ChromeOS device, I don't believe you. You cannot be an effective sysadmin administrator on a ChromeOS machine unless you're propping up Google Apps and nothing else.
If you have installed something else, the value proposition of a pixel is flawed and your education district shouldn't have paid for it.