Back when I went to school in Germany, we had a locker at school, but I just took the books I needed for assignments home with me. I haven't heard of schools that don't let you take (loaned) books home.

It sounds like the major issue here is the access to information. It's not the fault of the medium but rather the IP rights around it. Books are expensive because the text book industry needs their cut. Schools need to protect the expensive books because children can and will impulsively throw one off a bridge on their walk home.

The digital editions are restricted due to IP, so you can't have an infinitely copyable version for reference at home to solve the issue of children being destructive sometimes. So you end up with the worst of both worlds.

We could theoretically teach kids to convert cubits to feet and give them a translated version of the same ancient egyptian geometry textbooks used to educate the architects of the pyramids. Triangles aren't new. Why has there not been an opensource/creative commons math textbook made available to all schools with a issues board for crowd sourcing correctness?

This could be done with discrete periods of history, sciences, math, etc. We really don't need the McGraw Hill 2026 Florida Patriot's edition of the 18th century American history textbook.

Or every student have the books they need, and are free to bring them home.