Why have U.S. K-12 materials been so slow to "go digital"?

Investors and corporate managers are growing old while waiting for education markets to “go digital”. Other information businesses have made the transition, many over a decade ago. The thesis, by analogy, is that the transition in education must be just around the corner.

However, this thesis is severely flawed and some large corporates with deep experience in transitioning information businesses to digital modes have divested education assets after experiencing frustrating delays and set-backs — think Reed Elsevier (with Harcourt Education) and The Thomson Corporation (with Thomson Learning, now Cengage). The benefits of the digital transition to mission-critical information businesses are indisputable and attractive. They realize higher growth rates and profit margins as they are no longer constrained by the high fixed cost of…