From the article:

What began as a long-shot attempt last year by Pearson Plc to sell California educators digital materials to teach history and politics, collectively known in US schools as social studies, has become reality in what could be the first large-scale step to eliminate books from classrooms.

Now, I understand the reasons:

"Most schools have a big fat textbook on the table that doesn't really entice students any more," Scardino said."

And I'm even okay with the fact that this is probably the real enticement for Pearson:

London-based Pearson estimated it cost about half as much to develop as a textbook with supplemental materials, and added that it had about a 41 percent market share.

My major concern is the impact this will have on literacy and reading comprehension, and it doesn't help  when you say things like:

Pearson's multimedia product, created by its Scott Foresman unit, enables teachers to tailor lessons to individual students, includes video clips and is able to read aloud all of the lessons in English and Spanish.

But kids are probably reading too much these days.   I hear that whole Harry Potter thing is really dragging down averages.