I think jailbreaking is for when you're doing something the device manufacturer deliberately tries to interfere with. There's a package called "crouton" which

I think jailbreaking is for when you're doing something the device manufacturer deliberately tries to interfere with. There's a package called "crouton" which makes it fairly simple to run a full Linux distribution alongside Chrome OS, as long as you switch it into developer mode (which is simple*). The trouble there is that it's not the sort of thing you would want to administrate in bulk. Chromebooks are capable of running custom operating systems by design. Granted, you need to void the warranty (take out the firmware lock screw) to make another operating system the default boot option, for security reasons. And of course, to manage custom images on Chromebooks for a general classroom environment could be hard. Personally I think that the idea of the "school computer" is terrible. Schools should issue laptops which are maintained and administered by the student; otherwise students are just being taught helplessness. The only problem with this is that school boards typically buy a wide range of abysmal proprietary packages which are usually locked to a single OS vendor.