Reflection on the effect of the ecconomy on online learning

This economy has severely hurt the education profession and I don't think it is done yet.  in the last two years it has been really hard for an educator to get into a position where they are able to have a steady job.  I know from friends in the profession who just started teaching and were let go at the end of last year that finding a teaching job with some form of job security is really hard nowadays.  I read an interesting article earlier today about the rise in online courses taken in High school.  And while the article is mainly on the online classes and what that means to the students, I see this as a way to save the state money and to get rid of teachers.  If you assigned a group of student to a 'teacher' to monitor them as they go through the online courses you have no better than a counselor.  The teachers role in all of this is background and there is no real feedback.  My brother took an online civics course in his senior year and the teacher who was overseeing the program didn't have (or take) a whole lot of time to interact with the students whether by email or otherwise.  While I am all about saving money in a hard economic time I don't think that it should be done at the teachers or students expense.  We should first cut the salaries of the politicians.