Maybe this is a hot take. However, a lot of the Chromebooks that were deployed by schools during covid are build like tanks while being super lightweight and having great battery life. Meanwhile the old thinkpads are 10 years old and are probably starting to wear down. Many Chromebooks support coreboot these days so theoretically they have the potential to be more private and secure. Some of them are also arm which means that they are more efficient from an architecture perspective.
They are built like tanks? The Chromebook laptops I’ve come across were flimsy as aluminiumfoil. The plastic hinges were so weak you had to try to not tear the screen from the keyboard!
That has not been my experience. If that was the case schools wouldn’t be buying them.