Behold the Kindle. Right now it is one of those high-tech gimmicks that make it easy for well-heeled techno-nerds to carry around their reading material. With a steep price tag, it doesn’t seem likely that this one is going to catch fire with regular folks anytime soon. But wait a minute; there are some people in high places that seem to think that the Kindle just may be the tool to revolutionize education.

As reported in a recent Barron’s blog, the Democratic Leadership Council has just issued a report, “A Kindle in Every Backpack”. The thesis? From primary grades through college, students are forced to lug around huge, heavy textbooks that are on their way to being obsolete before they leave the presses. According to the DLC, e-textbooks have a myriad of advantages:

• Start with just the size and weight of traditional textbooks. With a device like a Kindle, entire texts can be loaded into the device, eliminating the heft problems.

• E-textbooks eliminate built-in obsolesce. Textbook companies can regularly update the information in their texts without having to issue an entire new line of textbooks, keeping faculty and students up-to-date on the latest findings in the sciences, mathematics and current events/history. This would position e-texts an invaluable tools for students pursuing careers in areas with rapidly changing databases like engineering, nursing and other medical fields, and education majors.

• E-textbooks would have a very positive environmental impact.

Of course, there are a couple of obstacles to switching schools, colleges and universities to e-textbooks. First there is the matter of cost – textbooks are expensive, but so is an e-reader. The DLC report makes a compelling case that the price of a downloaded text will be much less than the purchase of its paper counterpart. However, they do not address the basic cost of a Kindle-like device. It is safe to say that should this proposal gain steam, it may very well lead to the development of an education-specific e-reader that could be manufactured at a price-point to make it affordable to cash-strapped students.

Then there is the matter of the textbook industry. The writing, printing and continual updating of textbooks is big business and there is no question that there will be more than a bit of resistance to this brave new world of e-texts. But like iPods and PDAs, e-readers like the Kindle will soon stop being toys for the rich and start being real tools for a wider audience, including students and educators.

Jeff Bezos of Amazon has been the fire under the Kindle project, but with the huge educational and marketing potential of a student-specific e-reader, don’t be surprised to see heavy weights like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates weigh in with ideas. Who knows? The Kindle could make the backpack obsolete.