In my kids' schools, the textbooks haven't been removed due to cost, they have been replaced with even more expensive online material that no one properly consumes.

Educators have been brainwashed into believing "computers are the future!" and don't seem to be able to even contemplate that reading something on a screen is a poor substitute for physically interacting with something (a pen and paper, a book, or the actual thing being described in a video).

I regularly have to tell my kids to stop doing math and science problems on their computer and get out a pencil and paper to do the work so they can organize it and understand it. They argue at first because their teachers tell them not to (so they say), but stop when they actually see it working.