Gov. Rick Perry is being pressured by social conservatives on the State Board of Education and their followers to veto legislation authorizing local school boards to buy electronic textbooks.

If the governor caves in to the pressure, he will be putting the narrow interests of the social conservatives on the board ahead of the interests of 4.7 million Texas schoolchildren. In addition, a veto would kick dents in the supposedly hallowed notion of local control.

The bill, sponsored in the Texas House by Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas, would allow local school boards to use money allotted for print textbooks to buy electronic versions.

School districts wouldn't be forced to buy electronic textbooks, mind you, but would have that option — the ultimate in local control.

State Board of Education members — whose chairman, Don McLeroy, failed to secure Senate confirmation this session — are whipping up their base voters by decrying a loss of influence over textbook content. Anyone who has ever suffered through a Texas textbook hearing has seen a lot of political posturing and heard long lectures on odd notions about what science is. If learning enters into the discussion, it's strictly an accident.

The Legislature has curtailed the board's influence on textbook selection over the past sessions, but the board's social conservative majority is impervious to hints — their nonexistent role in this session's public education overhaul should have been a big one — as well as deaf to messages. Did you not hear the Senate clearly, Dr. McLeroy?

It should come as no surprise to anyone — especially anyone even remotely familiar with education — that reading styles have changed. Today's students are by and large as comfortable in front of a computer screen as their grandparents were with a book — perhaps even more so.

Whereas bound texts have to wait until the next press run to be updated, electronic books can be updated quickly.

It is ironic that a state with a huge investment in information technology would cling so fiercely to the past, and that's exactly what a veto would do.

We are not talking about science fiction here. Delivering content electronically is neither novel nor untested. Electronic information delivery is not the future — it's the present.

The state's business and political leaders all give ready lip service to the state's great need for an educated work force to meet future demands of business and industry. (Check their Web sites for details.) Denying local school boards the option of selecting modern teaching tools is not the way to build that work force.

The governor should ignore the pressure building to veto the electronic textbooks bill. He should remember Wayne Gretzky's observation on hockey players. "A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be," said Gretzky, who entered the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1999.