I don't want to say you're out of touch. I am honestly not sure what you're picturing.

I have two shelves of Books in my home. I own more than two shelves of Books.

Most of my books these days are electronic. I prefer to buy my books electronically through vendors and even if my house burned down I would still have most of my library sans those books that are out of print. Those students still have books. They just aren't using traditional physical books. Their books are electronic. By utilizing electronic versions of the exact same books it will benefit themselves, their teachers, and the taxpayers.

No longer do we have to issue falling apart books to students because the school board voted they couldn't afford new books that year. No longer do we have to print off tons of supplements because the books aren't up to date.

I am sure many people my age remember the Berlin Wall falling because our geography classes still had the same textbooks and now supplements on Germany explaining information that was outdated.

With electronic textbooks accessible via school issued laptops each student can have access to the most up to date version of the book that can be updated as the publishers put in new information or take something out. In fact more kids read now than before simply because kids these days are more used to reading.

Their smart devices encourage reading at a level that was not so encouraged when I was a child. That those same devices then give access to an amount of books that would make the Library of Alexandria jealous is a good thing.

Hell I wish Kindles had been around when I was a kid because I was an avid reader and when my backpack was too full of books I would, no shit, stuff books in my sleeves to get them all home.

I bet the kids with no physical books in their homes end up with even more books than people who do. My mom currently has a collection of over 70,000 books (dear god I wish that was an exaggeration but no really the amount is over 70,000 I am not going to go look at the current number)

Because she's a book lover and collects every book she finds interesting. That amount of books would not physically fit into our home. But her phone fits into her pocket.

To me this shift is no different than scrolls to books. Same medium different interface.

The big concern I have is how staring at a screen may increase fatigue and eye strain compared to reading print. At least it happens to me.

The school board could very well do the same for laptops and tablets. I imagine kids can be careless with their equipment, plus they are subject to just as much obsolescence as books can. Plus, you still have to pay someone for the rights to the reading material. Textbooks are expensive not because they use some diamond-encrusted binding, but because of its content. You'd be paying just as much to read a textbook off a screen as you would from print.

Also because the demand isn't as high actually. Many college students have already been doing ETextbooks already and paying a LOT less than the physical copies were costing them. So there is a savings there. With electronic Textbooks you don't have to guess how many you'll need.

With most books you can publish and then sell directly to booksellers who then can order how many they need based on their own individual sales figures. Textbooks it can vary depending on how many people take the class.

Most kids are actually a lot more careful with other people's things than they are with their own. Sure they still get the normal wear and tear which is why textbooks would fall apart they get old and no matter how well taken care of they're riding in a bag with a bunch of other books.

Going electronic also decreases health concerns to the children no longer having heavy backpacks.

I understand the concerns about eyestrain which actually is another reason this is good. How many adults know how to properly handle eyestrain from staring at computers too long? Not a lot in my experience and yet the majority of our jobs involves looking at screens a lot.

I didn't know how to properly handle it until my eye doctors taught me how. How great then if it was taught in school.

Even if you're paying for new textbooks it's only when there's a new version not when one wears out. For most subjects a textbook can last decades. When I was cleaning a classroom two years ago they were still using the same history book that I used in high school in 98.

My youngest son is in 5th grade and he's never used a physical book in school. It's all been on iPad and Chromebooks. While they have both every years they get either a new pad or c-book. This year he got a c-book. They're part of his tuition and the old pads/c-books are sent for factory refurb and donated.
My youngest daughter used e-books while getting her BA, my two oldest daughters actually used books. I used cave walls.