[digikata]

The cost curriculum flailing can't be understated. Eg. of school textbook is ridiculous. Not just college level, all the k-12 texts have to be updated to match the very detailed curriculum requirements - and only textbook vendors track it, and then they put out new books. But it's now not only the books, because the curriculum changes, teachers need to develop new teaching plans and because it changes so often - they often need to buy workbooks or other materials to help keep up. Then there is the add-on electronic access (which is almost always some terrible 90's tech access gateway to quasi-pdfs, or some html+proprietary multimedia gateway). Meanwhile, kids are lugging around backpacks full of textbooks which are 2x the thickness they used to be (because the efficiency of production wasn't used to reduce costs - it was used to increase pagecount...).

[bradleyjg]

I don't think this is a major part of the equation. Most states have at least a six year textbook purchase cycle. Often they try to stretch it out even further than that.

Let's do a Fermi calculation: 6 subjects x 1 / 6 of a text book per year x 1.1 for lost or destroyed textbooks * $200 per book = $220 in textbooks per year per student.

For scale, Mississippi has the lowest average spending per pupil in the nation -- $8,130 as of two years ago.

Granted there's workbooks and software too, but if you look at the budget of a school district, the lion's share is going to district personnel not books or computers or electricity or anything else external.

Disclosure: I work for an e-textbook company.