Can Schools go Totaly Digital and Throwout the Text Books?

Yesterday the Education Secretary Arne Duncan called for the nation to move as fast as possible away from printed textbooks and toward digital ones. “Over the next few years, textbooks should be obsolete” he claimed.  Apparently the Secretary who has never taught a child in his life has seen how other countries like South Korea have moved to a digital text instead of traditional books. While I do not disagree that digital readers are becoming more of the norm and even my son is really into reading books on the tablet, I don’t understand why children who don’t like to read now will become avid readers because its on a screen vs a paper text.

I think the other issue is money. Most states are now trying to keep the roof from leaking and feeding kids who don’t get enough to eat at home. I struggle to comprehend the ability of each state to provide millions of students with some type of e-reader and carry the insurance needed to repair/replace the devices when kids spill, drop, break those devices.

From a storage sales standpoint would I love if each school system had their own copies of the 100 page Algebra II book I had to carry around in my backpack on a IBM storage array. Maybe there is a market for some startup to create a reader that is cost effective, reliable, easy to maintain and kept up to date.  You could have sheet music on it, supplemental videos and help for kids that may need that extra help when mom and dad can’t be bothered.

I guess when you look at the overall idea of helping kids learn more with better tools then why not use technology? But I dont think we are going to improve our test scores by having kids learn from ipads. We still have to get kids to want to learn and it starts at home with the parents and at school with teachers.