OUCH!
It’s outrageous when you consider that there should be much less overhead associated with an online school. No dedicated buildings, sports fields, janitors, or significant admin costs. If every teacher is teaching classes of 20 students, that’s $280,000/yr per teacher with very little overhead.
That’s a racket.
25 years ago when I was getting my degree in computer science, I worked on artificial intelligence expert systems for teaching. The idea was to allow many fewer teachers since the need for individual attention would be rare. Back then it would have required a physical presence close to computer servers capable of running such software. Today the required server processing power is trivial and broadband would allow students, teachers, and servers to all be at dispersed locations.
Education should be cheap, consistent, and free of indoctrination by now. There are only three reasons why it isn’t: Teachers, teachers’ unions, and school administrators. What would the world be like if government employees were actually interested in getting the job done as efficiently and inexpensively as possible rather than lining their own pockets ?