Problem is, there has been a huge consolidation of the textbook industry in the last 15 or so years. There are now only a few—maybe two or three—publishers. They do publish a couple or so titles for each subject/grade level, but that’s it. 25 years ago I had maybe a dozen texts to choose from for my jr. high history classes. Last time it was three or four—and most were pretty poor. They try to wow you with all of the extra stuff—websites, etc.
The problem could by solved with e-book texts which could open themselves up for competition again.
“The problem could by solved with e-book texts which could open themselves up for competition again.”
Don’t be so sure of that. The problem with e-books is who controls them. The Texas State Board of Education, whose members are voted in by the public, has usually pushed for books representing a conservative viewpoint (such as respecting the country, teaching phonics, teaching math without calculators) - often making national news. Needless to say, the teachers here, along with the administrators and other Leftists DESPISE having to answer to them (with the one exception of the public schools that I send my kids to...LOL). So the Left came up with CSCOPE, an electronic curriculum which was free of state BOE control and were able to get their hard-left, America-hating, agenda into our schools. If you take it one step further, with e-books, the actual text in the books could be changed REAL-TIME, which is scary as hell. So if the book is on the school Intranet, it can say that Trump sucks prostitutes every night, for example, but when the school hooks up to a home system (i.e., where parents can read it), it will say that Trump is the 45th President of the United States.
I prefer paper - it doesn’t have the ability to morph.