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There's no doubt that the darn textbooks are heavy, and the Kindle will be nice for that reason, but beyond that, this does indeed sound like a very bad deal for the school system and us taxpayers, and not just because they overpaid.
They jumped in way too early. Before too many years, specialty providers will pop up with cheaper, but heavier and more durable ereaders, and they will come with a package of e-textbooks built in. Right now, the school system will certainly NOT be saving money with this move: they have tied themselves into a single (read: monopolistic) supplier; there isn't a vast selection of e-ready textbooks to choose from yet, so they'll have to buy whatever they can get; they won't be saving any money on the books if they can't easily re-use them for the next 10 years, as they do now with paper books; and they will surely lose a lot of the units and never get their money back. Do we really imagine the school will be able to collect when kids lose, break, or sell the units? Yeah, right.
Somebody made out like a bandit on this one...
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