Something must have changed in the years since I was in school. I often worked from textbooks decades old. I had to cover the when I received them and pay the school for a new one if I damaged it. Once I got to college, they made it a point to change editions every year so used books were near worthless. But I challenge you to find the differences between editions of a math textbook. Most students don't get into most subjects deep enough to need yearly revisions. To make things worse, teachers seem to have a bad habit of using very little of a textbook. Sometimes they just assign some of the problems after a lecture. Language and literature fare a bit better.
I like the idea of leveraging technology but it should be much more than digital textbooks. Teachers should have access to libraries do digital content that they can weave together for their lessons. And they should be able to track how much time each student is spending on it and how we'll they retain it later. There are so many possibilities that can help keep smart kids engaged and get the not so smart ones more help to keep them from giving up and getting left behind.
This is extremely complex and I'm not sure it has been done yet on any scale. Right now it seems like a money grab without much additional value for students or teachers.
) do not hold any sort of teaching credentials nor any experience working in a public school system. I'm willing to bet that the majority of these critics are not even residents of California (I lived in SoCal, but not necessarily in the L.A. Unified district region). 
